Retrouvaille
by nitto-onna
Summary: Just as Reid begins his attempt to move on and rebuild his life, an old enemy emerges with a cruel, shocking secret that, if unraveled, could mend the pieces of his broken heart or shatter him entirely. (Maeve is found alive after the Season 15 series finale, but not in the way Reid remembers).
1. Chapter 1

_Donovan's don't drown. Not unless it's on purpose_.

Maeve is taught to swim before she can walk.

Her father, who Maeve had never seen near any body of water, insisted upon it. He is descended from generations of fishermen and told stories about how the ocean had been their livelihood, to Maeve's fascination and her siblings' eye-rolling disinterest.

Even though her father had immigrated a very long time ago and all his children born very much inland, it was still a prerequisite he took seriously.

Maeve wasn't too bad of a swimmer compared to some of the other physical endeavours her parents pushed her to pursue before giving up. Her sister was the strongest swimmer. She was on the high school swim team. She liked pools. Her brother loved the beach and was a decent swimmer for the purpose of surfing and wind gliding.

Since she was a child, she would have a recurring dream of a dark-haired woman reaching out to her, sinking down beneath the surface. When she told her parents, they glanced at each other with worried looks and let her spend her afternoons with her microscope rather than doing her swimming lessons.

When she was older, Maeve liked going to the beach at weird times with a blanket and whatever book she was reading. Just before midnight or early in the morning before the sun rose.

She continued to have the same dream but she still didn't find the water scary.

_Donovan's don't drown, unless it's on purpose. _

_Maeve is drowning now. _

***

When she woke up the first time, there were no memories rattling around that could explain anything. There was no most recent memory to cling onto – only weight pressing down on her.

Specifically, weight on her arms. They felt like restraints and she focused on the pressure to stay conscious. Pressure started blossoming on one side of her head like a flame getting brighter until the pain became so intense it felt like she was on fire. She slipped back under before it got severe enough.

The pain remained but was growing duller. Or maybe she was just getting used to it.

Maeve tried opening her eyes but it was blurry. Grey.

There was a woman – with dark eyes. Almost black. Short hair. Dark hair. Everything was still blurry.

The woman moved her lips. Maeve couldn't hear anything. Just painful, piercing ringing that made her fingernails curl into her restrained palms harshly.

She doesn't remember the next three times she wakes up or how many days pass.

All she knows is that she's still here.

Still waking up.


	2. Chapter 2

Reid could hear noises faintly in the distance. Tiny dots of light danced before his eyes as his thoughts sharpened. There was a dull pain in the side of his head that throbbed more intensely as he became more lucid until it was truly quite painful.

"Spencer? _Spencer!"_ a voice came closer laced with worry and accompanied by hurried footsteps.

There was pressure against the opposite side of his head – the unharmed side – and he tried to collate fragments of memory to piece together where he was. The pressure was solid and rough but…bouncy? It smelled clean, and rubbery, and slightly like rawhide leather and new shoes. It reminded him of the sporting goods store he had recently visited. Was that where he was now? Maybe he had knocked himself out on an overhanging basketball hoop display. No, he distinctly remembered the bright blue, meticulously vacuumed carpet underneath his work shoes. He remembered the alarmingly high ponytail of the sales assistant swinging jubilantly as she listed off the specifications and features of each of the men's sneakers mounted on a seemingly never-ending wall. Feeling overwhelmed and entirely out of place among the footwear that had names more akin to advanced weapons, he quickly settled on the first plainer looking shoe in his size that the sales assistant, Darcy – he remembered her name being, had selected within her armful of choices.

So, he wasn't at the store then. The feeling was returning to the rest of his body and he felt the familiar sting of the blister forming on his right toe from the new shoes. His thin cotton mismatched socks were probably not the best choice and he regretted not following Darcy's suggestion of a pair of thick sports socks at the counter. He filed away the reminder for next time.

"_Next time_?" he groaned. Not likely.

"_What did he say?"_

"_I don't know. I think he's coming to…"_

Although he understood the greater appeal of sport – the improvement of metabolic and cognition functions, prevention of mood impairments, reduction of stress subjective perception, the production and release of endorphins – he was yet to feel anything other than sore, moody, and usually humiliated and injured afterward.

"_I didn't think I hit it that hard! I don't know if it was the ball or the floor that knocked him out!"_

"_What's his name? Spencer? Spencer. Can you open your eyes?"_

The voice he recognised as the worried voice with the light footed but swift steps conversed with a voice far more authoritative and too strident to ignore.

He rolled over, so his back was flat against the gritty surface and he was lying facing upwards. _Ow!_

Reid opened his eyes, blinking into focus and groggily trying to move his arm to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight beating down on him. He turned away and found himself looking at a pair of knees. He lifted his chin a fraction and squinted to make out the figure whose crisp white tennis skirt, polo shirt and visor glowed brightly in the sun making it very difficult to see anything else.

There were a few other people – also dressed brightly in matching sets of corals and baby blues – forming a concerned, curious circle a little past the woman. Someone moved in the path of the sunlight and Reid's vision become much clearer and the woman's concerned face came into view beneath her visor.

He _knew_ that he knew who this was but he couldn't place her name or her context.

She was gripping her tennis racket in both hands with worry, keeping a watchful distance as another lady in a neat navy polo shirt and khakis with a radio clipped to the belt loop knelt beside Reid.

"Don't sit up," the lady told him. "You've hit your head."

"Where am I?" he asked, blinking in confusion.

The familiar woman in white groaned and put a hand on her forehead.

The lady muttered something into her radio before replying to him. "You're at the Sterling Teague Country Club. You were playing tennis and hit your head."

"Oooh, he's probably got a concussion!" one of the bystanders cried out excitedly. "Dazed and confused. Isn't that what the first aid instructor said? We should call an ambulance! They're might be cerebral compression. Do you remember that episode of Grey's Anatomy, Ainsley, when…"

"Oh, calm down, Vera!" the woman in white snapped.

"Well, I'm sorry, Maxine, but one should always be up to date with medical training – especially when you're on the courts. Honestly, Harrison, Maxine serves like a blacksmith! It's a wonder she hasn't knocked out more people!"

_Max!_

Reid shot up quickly and his vision quickly became clouded.

"Whoa!" the woman beside him said steadying him. "Take it easy. Okay gang, let's give him some space shall we?"

Once he focused again, he looked around to see some of the people were staring at him with avid car-accident interest and others were balancing their rackets in one hand, the other hand on their hips as they chatted like they were at a social event. Max took a few tentative steps forward before kneeling down on his other side.

"I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine!" Reid answered a little too quickly and too high-pitched. He was mortified. "I…mustn't have been drinking enough water."

"No, you knocked yourself out with your racket," the attendant revealed unhelpfully. "It was quite remarkable."

"Oh," Reid said quietly.

"Should I call an ambulance?" she asked, poised and ready to reach for her radio.

"No!" he insisted, flushing red, and for some reason – chuckling. "Haha, I'm fine. Really."

"Are you sure, Spencer?" Max's face was knitted with concern.

"Yes, absolutely. I already feel back to normal."

"If you're sure…I guess, you're the doctor after all."

"Hmm," the attendant mused. "Well, if you're sure. Max, come and find me if anything changes."

"I will, thanks Ainsley. We'll be sticking around for the rest of the afternoon so I can keep an eye on him…provided you still want to go to dinner after I nearly killed you?" she asked half-joking, and half-hesitantly to Reid.

"I'll take the risk," he smiled and already felt too far in the throes of embarrassment to protest being helped to his feet by the attendant – Ainsley – and Max.

Max led him to a seat in the shade and handed him a bottle of water. After some awkward small talk while Reid recovered from crippling humiliation and a throbbing head, he began to feel more coherent. Enough so that he convinced Max he was more than well enough to make his way unassisted to the men's shower room.

Reid felt fortunate that it was mercifully empty – likely due to the bars happy hour being in full swing – as he felt like an alien among the other members of Max's country club. When he met Max two months in that park, she did not strike him as someone belonging to such an environment but when she suggested the club as the location of their next date, she seemed quite nervous and shy which led him to conclude that it was quite a big deal for some reason for her to invite him here.

In honesty, it was refreshing finding it difficult to read someone. Max was full of surprises and every time he thought he had a good understanding of her, she would reveal a detail that would make her even more mysterious and surprising.

Although he felt like he was returning to a strange sense of stability and normalcy getting to know Max and each outing with her was certainly an adventure, he couldn't deny the exhaustion that followed. Not just mentally but physically. So much so he would sleep a solid twelve hours after and still arrive to work yawning and bedraggled that led to a lot of misunderstanding, wolf-whistling and teasing from his team.

Reid shook the thought from his head and washed the shampoo out of his hair. He winced in pain and tried to massage out the tension in his shoulders under the running water. Their last date was bushwalking through the National Park. It was drizzling slightly and Max, who had told him she loved the heat, was enjoying herself too much to be put out by it and continued to walk briskly down the leafy, damp path pointing out wildlife that she found interesting.

Reid was half thankful that his concentration was spent almost entirely on navigating the slippery path in his Converse (hence the purchase of more appropriate footwear for today's activity) so he was unable to offer trivia about each thing she observed and let his motor mouth shatter the composed demeanour he hoped he was maintaining.

He dried himself off and changed into his nicer clothes before carding his fingers through his hair to get the knots out. Reid glanced briefly in the mirror. He felt he had started to grow into his features the past few years – he looked nearly unrecognisable from the skinny, bespectacled youngster who started in the BAU, the fresh-faced 'boy-band' haired kid, or when he was still awkward and gangly and had his hair hang long and limply in a way that made his Aunt Ethel tut disapprovingly. He had been told he had become more societally appealing and attractive although he knew that appearances were subjective. Somehow, he was starting to recognise the person in the mirror less and less. Despite the lump in his throat whenever he reflected on it too long, he wasn't sure if it was necessarily a bad thing that he was finding it harder to connect with the person he used to be.

Reid waited on the balcony of the restaurant overlooking the grounds. When Max arrived, she looked bright and effortlessly beautiful as if she wasn't exerting herself to a Wimbledon-standard a mere hour ago. Reid assured her four separate times that he was fine before they ordered their food. Reid let Max order for the two of them. Max was 'a foodie' and had been opening him up to trying new things. It amazed Reid how she could flip from gourmet food to cooking chicken nuggets the next.

He made a face when she recited 'grilled ox tongue and sauce gribiche' as one of the dishes to the waiter and she shot him a '_trust me'_ look.

Of course, most of it was good (and he pretended for the things that were too adventurous), even with Max's protests that it wouldn't taste right without the proper wine paired. She shook her head with amusement as the waiter brought Reid another Coke and her a Pinot Noir.

"Interesting choice," she nodded. "I personally thought that Fanta would pair better with seafood."

Reid chuckled before drinking. "I'm just happy that they have Coke here."

"Of course, what would they mix with the rum? I'm a bit shocked that they didn't at least have the hospitality to provide you with a curly straw."

They talked a lot about Max's new job in art therapy. It was a pleasant subject that allowed Reid to avoid speaking of his own work which had tried since the Cat incident.

"Are you sure you don't want _one _drink, Spencer?" she asked

Reid swallowed a gulp of his soda. He wasn't sure that his history of recovering from a drug addiction was light enough conversation for the stage they were at. Reid knew that a healthy relationship required honesty and openness but for the moment he was enjoying feeling like a normal person, going on dates with a normal, pretty girl after their joint ordeal. Just like everyone else does. He quite liked that Max didn't know about his childhood, his mother, Tobias Hankel, the Dilaudid, his genetic makeup, the anthrax and multiple gunshot wounds, losing Gideon and…

_No. _

"No, thanks. Chinese takeout and an apartment full of books are the only vices I need," he chuckled nervously.

Max sighed. "Ah, I remember Chinese takeout."

"Really?" he asked dubiously. Max treated her body like a temple.

"_Maintaining the temple,"_ she would joke before she drank a suspiciously textured and coloured shake while on the case. She also regularly went to the gym, played tennis and lacrosse, ran every morning, and was the only person Reid knew who drank the recommended daily intake of water. She made Morgan look slothful.

"Yeah, for a few years I lived off Chinese takeout, greasy pizza, and the best grilled cheese in the state."

Her smile faded and she cleared her throat a little forlornly. Reid knew that she probably had her own things she wasn't ready – if ever – to share.

They fell into silence for a few minutes before the chef came out to check how their dinner went.

"They really like you here," Reid said, his shoulder still stinging from where the jolly man had clapped it joyfully.

"They've all known me since I was little," she explained, thinking back fondly. "I know it's a bit lame and a weird place to hang out. And everyone here is either a hoity toity businessperson or a retiree from Florida but…it's home to me. My parents spent more time doing business here than in their actual offices, so it's where I grew up. I know it sounds all sad and neglectful but honestly, it was the best childcare centre I could ask for. When they weren't exploiting my cuteness in networking, I got to steal golf buggies and drink mocktails and have a good forty people at any given time able to help me with my homework. I sound quite spoiled now, don't I?"

"No," Reid insisted. "It sounds like it's a very special place for you."

Max smiled sadly. "It is, now I'm a hippy dippy art therapist which doesn't quite fit, haha….so, where did you grow up?"

"Vegas," he answered carefully. "But I moved to Pasadena for college when I was a teenager."

"That's Caltech then, right?"

"Yeah, mathematics."

"Wait, a teenager?"

_Dammit_, he thought.

"Yeah," Reid said hesitantly. "I finished high school at 12."

"Wow! Usually I'm the overachiever on dates!" she joked.

Reid was glad she found it amusing and not too weird. Though she continued with the standard course of dinner date questions.

"Have you done much dating?" she asked. "Real dates – not ones with sociopaths. And obviously post-College since that would be a felony."

"Urrrr, no. Not a great deal. Work is…most my time. Have you?" Reid asked, trying to bounce the conversation back and forth. He remembered years ago when Alex had told him it was important to do that.

She shrugged. "Here and there when but nothing too serious in a while."

Max trailed off and looked thoughtfully out over the pretty landscape. She turned back to Reid curiously who was also looking at the view. She took another sip of her wine.

"Deep questions round – have you ever been in love before?"

"Yeah," he answered automatically while staring at the wind blowing through the trees below them. His head snapped back at her, unsure why he was telling her that. Something must have shown on his face because her face softened from curiosity to sympathy.

"She break your heart?"

His voice broke slightly. "Y-yeah."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Max winced, sensing the cracks in Reid's composure. "I went too personal, didn't I? My parents were lawyers so I'm used to hard hitting questions being an okay thing. But I didn't mean to twist the knife on anything fresh. Oh, she really did a number on you didn't she?"

Reid forced a reassuring smile that just came out grim. "Something like that."

"I'm sorry," Max said genuinely. "And you're a non-drinker too, yikes."

Reid let out a hollow sounding chuckle before taking a long drink. Max smiled wistfully as she toyed with the napkin in her lap.

"I've been in love once before too."

Reid wasn't sure if she was just trying to kindly even out his discomfort by empathising with his disclosure. She seemed more reminiscent than embarrassed or upset about the subject though, so Reid smiled encouragingly thankful to be learning more about her rather than focusing on his previous tragedies.

"High school sweethearts," Max said rolling her eyes with a smile. "Well, different high schools but…I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."

"It's okay!" he assured. "I…I really like hearing about your life."

Max smiled, and hesitantly chewed her lower lip. "Thanks, I…I really haven't told anybody much about…well, anything. I feel really comfortable with you."

"I'm glad," Reid said.

"It's part of the reason, well the whole reason really, why I love this place so much. And why I can't quite let it go despite the fact it's…well, quite boring," she smiled.

"Did you meet here?" he deduced.

"Yeah, it kind of sounds like a cliched mid-day movie. I was young and bit of a brat. And…Joshua…he was a very non-bratty, hardworking and super cute waiter. It seemed the perfect way to annoy my parents which was my main goal at the time."

Reid smiled at the story. It did seem the kind of happy teenage tale that makes people look back in fondness. He was too young, too unusual, and too focused to have experienced anything like that in his own years.

"Joke was on me though because I ended up falling quite hard and, well, it was the best time I can think of being here. I nearly cost him his job half a dozen times. Luckily though, he was talented enough to get himself a partial scholarship and with his ridiculous ten odd side jobs he was able to go to a better college than me. We lived together, though, in a tiny dusty apartment above a Chinese takeout. Hence, all the Chinese food…"

"What happened?" Reid asked but instantly wanted to claw the words back as Max's smile evaporated.

"Aneurysm," she smiled sadly. "Dumb, right? While every other kid is going to parties and, I don't know, stealing booze from their parents cabinets, you change old peoples tyres and read to your little brothers and sisters and work a hundred different jobs and do all your schoolwork and all you want to do in life is take photos for newspapers and take your girlfriend to Japan and pay off your parent's house and a week after your 25th birthday you pass out in a post office and die."

Max expected Reid to look shocked, but he looked deeply saddened. She continued in alarm.

"Oh god, I really went dark there didn't I? It's obviously still a thing but I'm fine now. It's been a long time and I've kissed a lot of frogs and have become far less gloomy. I really don't know why I'm telling you all this. I think I've become nervous and ordered too much wine. I didn't kill him by hitting him with a tennis ball if you're worried."

"No," he shook his head, smiling at Max's attempts at keeping it light. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she waved her hand.

"No, I really am. Thank you for telling me. He…you both…it sounds like it was really wonderful and I'm happy that I was able to hear a bit about it. I…I would always like to hear more whenever, if you ever want to talk more about him."

Max seemed touched and beamed happily reaching for Reid's hand for the first time. Despite his body panicking at the human contact, he didn't pull away. He had been so focused on deliberately not sharing anything about himself that he had forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of someone's trust and vulnerability. Despite how much he hated what had happened and wished that her partner had survived and could have lived out the rest of the lovely story she had shared, he felt lighter knowing that she had her own history and tragedies. It made him feel a little less scared at the possibility of slowly allowing himself to share parts of himself he had been burying away.

They had paid – Max very sternly demanding that she pay for half despite his insistence to do it – and decided to go for a walk since the sun was still out and Max was still sneakily keeping an eye on his possible concussion.

The white gravel was loose and wet under Reid's shoes as they walked along the lovely hedges all topiaried into fanciful shapes and animals. It reminded him of the psychiatric hospital, and he drew his attention entirely to Max's anecdote about the antics of the pageboy at a wedding she attended the previous weekend.

The vast swathes of grass stretched down to a lake dotted with architectural follies and Max sighed with weary happiness as they strolled down the winding path. Reid imagined a young Max and Joshua gleefully running hand in hand down gravelled lanes and stealing kisses in all the nooks and crannies. She looked soothed by pleasant recollections and Reid felt grateful that she liked him enough to share this special place.

As if she could read his thoughts, she chuckled to herself and turned to him. "Thank you for coming here, today. I know it's not…your thing. I don't even think it's my thing at all, but it means a lot to me. And thank you for not freaking out about my oversharing...and knocking you out."

"No, not at all," he insisted as they reached the carpark. "I had a nice time."

"Haha, you're a good sport, I'll give you that," Max chuckled smoothing down her black dress when they approached her car.

She looked up at him expectantly but of what, he wasn't sure. "I- thank you for inviting me. I had a nice time."

"As you keep saying," she smiled, still not breaking eye contact. He always struggled with this part. They hadn't kissed again since the elevator. When they had broken apart that time, he hadn't felt what he had expected to feel but chalked it up to needing more time.

"I-um. I'll see you soon then?" he enquired awkwardly. Max gave a slightly disheartened smile as she glanced toward her car.

"Sounds good," she agreed, though her words were laced with resignation. Reid yet again experienced the sinking feeling as he had before at the conclusion of their previous dates but was reassured that she, despite the undertone of disappointment that he could often detect from her, was agreeable to meeting again. "Will you be alright to drive?"

"Oh, yes. I'm fine. Definitely," he said. "But thank you. And thank you for today. It was…"

"Nice?" she finished with amusement.

"Yes," he chuckled, walking backwards to his car parked opposite hers. "I hope your work conference goes well."

"Thanks," she smiled, unfastened her clutch to take out her keys. "I'll let you know once I'm back."

"That would be ni-_good_. I'll talk to you then."

Max smiled at him as she opened her door and got in. He was busying himself with unlocking his own car when he heard her door open once more.

"Spencer?" she sounded hesitant as her fingers gripped the top of her car window.

"Yeah?" he spun around.

"Thank you again for listening today," she said sincerely. "And…and I hope one day I can do the same for you. When…if you decide to tell me."

"Tell you what?" Reid asked, confused.

"You know what," Max said shaking her head with a smile. "_It_. Whatever _it_ is. Everyone has one."

"O-oh," Reid stammered out not quite sure how to answer but luckily Max smiled warmly and wished him a goodnight before pulling her car out.

Reid's confusion and uneasiness at the stability and status of their potential was short lived as he realised after patting down his pockets and searching his bag that he'd left his keys in the shower room.

He groaned at the trek he would have to undertake to get them. Truthfully, his head was starting to ache again along with most of his body and he was so drained he knew he would be asleep within a few minutes of getting home.

Too exhausted to appreciate the beauty of the landscape for a second time, Reid hurried back up to the building to search for his keys. After locating them under the bench in the shower room, he walked back along the carpeted corridor only to stop at one of the many pictures lining the mustard yellow walls.

The downlights shone onto a series of framed photographs that looked as though they were candid snaps of many guests and staff memories that spanned over decades. One of the pictures was from a tennis tournament eighteen years ago. A young, fresh-faced Max was easily spotted on the end of the line-up of medal-adorned adolescents and their friends. She was the only person not looking at the camera with a triumphant smile presumably from the enormous trophy the middle girl had hoisted in the air impressively. She was instead looking down, mid-laugh at the young boy lifting her up slightly in a huge hug. His messy auburn hair looked extremely out of place within the group and the look of pride and wonder and adoration on the young boy's face as he looked up at Max confirmed that this must have been Joshua.

Joshua.

A waiter with many different jobs. Scholarship recipient. Loving sibling. Hard working son. College student. Max's boyfriend. Kind and unselfish. Died in a post office at 25.

Reid struggled to place the guilt that descended upon him as he revisited the brief details Max shared about this person's life. He realised he hadn't quite understood at the time the magnitude of what she had told him. How painful it would be to unlock those precious details to share with him. How privileged he was to have a glimpse of this young, beloved person's life. He realised his guilt stemmed from him not offering her anything in return.

There was so much so deeply repressed and locked away that he knew was too precious and painful and unaddressed to even attempt to chip away at right now. Especially not right at the start of their getting to know each other properly. He had to unpack that for himself for a start. But he owed her something. Some kind of vulnerability to show that he did care, and he was grateful.

There was a smorgasbord for him to select from with varying degrees of trauma. He flipped methodically through cases where he was nearly killed, the losses in the team, his time in prison. He supposed he could share his mother's diagnosis and their story. Max was kind enough and had a general understanding of mental illnesses to presumably not be too horrified. It also seemed the kind of practical conversation one would expectedly have earlier in dating rather than springing on someone years later.

This seemingly reasonable choice did nothing to quell his guilt as he drove home. Even though this deliberation had confirmed that it would be prudent to tell her about his mother as soon as practical, it felt deceptive in that he knew now what she was asking for cryptically in the carpark and this wasn't it.

Reid sighed in exhaustion once he reached his empty apartment. He showered once more and changed into his pyjamas before settling on to the sofa to finish the book he had started that morning. A nagging sensation pulled at him which made focusing on the words too frustrating rather than relaxing. He switched on the television which he found equally as difficult to concentrate on. With a defeated sigh of acceptance, he sat up and scrolled through his contacts to find Max's number. His hands started to tremble as the phone rang three times and he immediately ran through several back up excuses in case he lost his nerve. _Don't allow that to happen. _

"Hello, this is Max speaking," she answered.

"Maeve," he swallowed quickly before he lost his nerve. It was still the most painful word to say.

"What?"

"That was her name."

"Spencer? What…who's name?"

"M-my…my…um…my…" he stammered. What the hell was he doing?

He considered hanging up, changing his number, and just avoiding Max's neighbourhood for the rest of his life.

"Joshua," she said, a sad smile evident in her voice.

He let out a shaky breath and quickly slammed shut the deeply locked away parts that were threatening to unravel him completely. Fortunately, Max didn't press for anything else. Reid would not even have been capable of handing over something as small as her star sign at this point. He felt selfish for it, but he couldn't do it. Not yet.

"Thank you, Spencer," Max told him gratefully, her voice gentle and kind. "Thank you for telling me that."

Reid nodded, realising too late that she couldn't hear him.

"I'll call you once I'm back to catch up again? No rackets or bats of any kind involved this time."

"Yeah, I'll look forward to talking then," he said. His teeth were chattering but there was something warm and comforting about confiding in Max. The weight in his shoulders seemed to lessen.

"Goodnight."

"Night, Max."


	3. Chapter 3

It was approaching midnight, but Spencer Reid was still awake lounging on his sofa in his dressing gown lazily flicking through channels until he stumbled across an appropriately mundane talk show. He hoped it would provide adequate background noise without any interesting content to keep him engaged.

He knew should be trying, or at least trying _harder_, to sleep considering the draining case he had just worked but horrifying images and graphic details plagued his mind whenever he attempted rest. One of the less savoury features of his near perfect memory. He took a sip of the green tea he was holding in his hands and grimaced. It wasn't entirely awful, but it certainly wasn't coffee.

Reid smiled down at the mug, the drink invoking a tiny memory like a warm glow in the corner of his mind that slowly expanded to consume the dark ones until warmth spread through his chest and he could feel himself becoming more restful.

Suddenly, his cell phone rang interrupting his pleasant train of thoughts, making him slop the yellow-green liquid down his front. He sighed deeply and scrunched up his face as he reached for it on the coffee table. Surely, they couldn't expect him to come in after being home for a mere hour after a 36-hour case with no sleep?

Not that he was getting any sleep anyway.

He didn't recognise the new number displayed on the screen. "Hello?" he mumbled, turning the television volume down.

"Oh, you sound exhausted! Sorry, I shouldn't have called so late. Sometimes I forget normal people go to bed at night-time. I've been procrastinating over calling for ages and I let it get too late. Sorry. I just don't know when to because of your erratic work schedule but you've probably just gotten back and trying to rest. I'm sorry. I'll call another time…"

"No, wait. Wait!" Reid urged before she could hang up. When he was sure he could still hear her soft breathing on the end of the line waiting for him, he smiled and formed what had come to be his favourite sentence for the better part of this year.

"Hello Maeve."

"Hi," she said breathlessly. Reid thought only Garcia could possibly rival Maeve in talking herself out of breath as she always did so when she was nervous or excited.

His elation at her call – the only welcome interruption from his thoughts of her – was short-lived as he considered the possibilities of why she would be calling out of their regular schedule. "Are you okay?"

"_I'm _fine."

Usually, she had the most beautiful, bright, calming voice but it sounded troubled tonight. Reid sat up concerned, pressing the phone against his ear.

"Maeve, what's wrong?"

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong, Spencer," she said in distress and he could hear her feet pacing back and forth. "I've spent every single night, all night, pouring over everything again and again. Your family tree, all your psych tests, every doctor's assessment since you were seven, your diet and lifestyle, your brain scans and blood tests. I've tried every prescription medication and subjected you to every test I can think of and they've all disproved any diagnostic theories I have. I've gotten so far into your genealogy I think you've got a claim to the throne in Denmark should a terrible tragedy happen to a couple thousand people. I woke up in a cold sweat last night and started researching planet alignment. I think I was high off cold medicine because I would never nor…oh, did you get the green tea?"

Reid smiled down into the cup like it was the most wonderful drink he'd ever sampled. "I did, thank you. I've been drinking it instead of coffee like you suggested. It's really good."

"You don't have to lie, it takes like grass," she sighed endearingly. "Maybe I'll send some Hyson Lucky Dragon tea next time. It's a bit more full-bodied than Dragonwell. Even though they're both grown in the Zhejian Province of China they – oh, sorry - I've gone off topic again. I've had some much coffee to keep awake, I can hear my heart in my ears…why am I talking to you about coffee? That's quite cruel…"

Reid felt guilt twinge in his stomach. She had lost so much sleep – and a little bit of sanity it seemed – trying to fix his headaches. He was torn between telling her the truth and spending the night talking to her.

"Now this absolutely grates me to my very core as a scientist and a rational human being so please try not to judge me or laugh at me or hang up on me but…," she took a deep, dramatic breath. "My mother got her degree from a questionable…I can only really describe it as a farm….so I unfortunately know all the potions and candles and all the rest of it and even though I've completely failed you as a doctor– I have a few new ideas on how we can fix them. Don't hang up! Before I take you completely down the rabbit hole, I know a lot of people find acupuncture or remedial massage helpful. They are more advocated for and proven even though I would rather chew off my own arm than have someone do that to me but I'm not the one suffering. I've done some cross-referencing on places near you that are decent and properly trained and won't give you hepatitis. I'll email the links to you. Another thing we can try is aromatherapy – particularly lavender oil. Urgh, if my mother could hear me now. Though I had a lot of trouble sleeping last week so I tried smelling some lavender talcum powder but I think I accidentally snorted some of it. Either way, it put me to sleep. Anyway, there's another old-fashioned remedy for headaches that's supposed to work well but…you would probably need your, um," she struggled to find the term she was searching for. "I don't know – girlfriend - to help you with that one."

"I don't have a girlfriend," Reid blurted out far too quickly and loud to pass as casual.

"Oh," she replied, mistaking his erratic response as offence. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…that was really heteronormative, I didn't mean to…"

"No, no, I'm not," Reid said hastily. "No boyfriend either."

"Oh, good, "she said sounding relieved. "No! I don't mean good as in it would be bad if you were. I'm just happy that I didn't – that you don't – well, I'm not _happy_ that you don't have someone either way. Not-not that it's a bad thing, of course. A lot of people are happy in their own, um,…that's not to say that some don't…_please feel free to rescue me from myself at any point here, Spence."_

"Sorry," he laughed light-heartedly too distracted by the joy that listening to her brought to intervene. Despite the happiness, he felt slightly deflated and somewhat disappointed in himself that she had possibly been under the assumption that his heart belonged to another during their correspondence. Even trying at first to hide it from himself, he thought it was clear as day that she was the object of his affection. Maybe the unfamiliar, all encompassing, and overwhelming feelings he had toward her had caused him to imagine the relationship he thought was starting to take shape between them.

Reid cleared his throat, trying to focus back on the task of rescuing her from talking herself in circles despite it being one of his favourite things about her. "Would you be able to help me with…whatever it is?" Reid asked, having no idea what procedure a significant other could possibly do that alleviate that type of pain.

Maeve chuckled nervously and went back to chewing on something. "For the sake of ethics, we should probably try the human pincushion or playdough factory idea first, Spence."

He had no idea what she was talking about but he loved it when she said his name. He just sat there like a stupid, love-struck teenager until he heard her sigh morosely.

"Maybe its best if you reach out to someone else, Spence. I just don't know what else I can do and I…I hate that you're in pain and I can't take it away."

Reid's heart skipped a beat. He knew eventually this…whatever it had grown to be…would have to come to its natural end when he no longer experienced the headaches. She had just cured him with little more than a glance at his record and he had been trying to prolong their time together since. He didn't think there would ever be a situation in which he would wish for that agonising pain to return.

"I don't want to ask another doctor," he said, hoping he didn't sound too much like an impertinent child. "I don't want to lose you. You're the most wonderful, most caring…d-doctor I've ever had." He winced at his words that had come out far more passionately than he had intended. He had tried to overcorrect and now he felt he had labelled her profound significance in his life as nothing more than helpful medical advice.

"Thank you," she said quietly. Now she sounded a little deflated – but Reid questioned in his mind whether it was his thoughtless words or her misplaced disappointment in her abilities. "I'm not really your doctor, though, and…there's far more suited people who can properly treat-"

"You're the most accomplished geneticist of your age…" Reid scoffed. He was absolutely certain that the fact he was completely enamoured with her played no bias in his opinion of her mind and her brilliance. He could be as attracted to her as he was to Chief Strauss and he still wouldn't hold anyone else's opinion in higher regard.

"Maybe," she said, chewing away. "In research. I haven't worked in medicine for a little while – I've worked with some people in the past that may actually be helpful. I mean I could write you a 75,000 word paper on the frequency of low-level mosaicism in sporadic retinoblastoma and genotype-phenotype relationships but that would make your headaches worse if not exploding your head entirely. It may be useful in putting you to sleep though unless you find de novo mutations as captivating as I do which is quite impossible."

He went to protest but stopped when it sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"Spencer, what if something is _wrong_? What if…something really is wrong with you and I've been sending you tea leaves and scented candles like an idiot instead of getting you proper help from a doctor not as apparently useless as me?"

"You're not useless, Maeve," Reid said, in near physical pain at how defeated and panicked she sounded and decided to tell her the truth. He had taken it way too far. She was hurting now. He would live in the misery of never speaking to her again than be the cause of any of her sadness. "There's something I need to tell you."

"Oh-okay," she said with concern. He heard her take a sharp intake of breath, bracing herself as if he was going to say something horrible to her. As if he were capable of doing that.

"Maeve, my headaches lately…they've…um, _eased_?"

"Eased?" she said slowly in confusion. Her pacing had stopped.

Reid pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath preparing for her to hang up and have them never speak again.

He was used to people he cared about leaving but he knew this would be an exquisitely personal form of torture to live out the rest of his life broken-hearted in the knowledge that the most perfect girl he could imagine would exist beyond his reach.

He'd only have himself to blame.

"I'm not sure if it was the Naratriptan you prescribed me or something else we've been trying but…they seemed to have gone...for now."

After a few minutes of silence and Reid waiting with the phone by his patiently, he heard her sniffing and holding back tears unsuccessfully. It reminded him of being shot in the leg again except the piercing pain went straight through his chest.

"Please, please don't cry," he said desperately, running his fingers through his hair and feeling flooded with self-loathing that he taken such selfish advantage of her kind heart and he had caused her to cry. He would have preferred anger and annoyance a thousand times over. "I'm so sorry, Maeve. I should've told you when they stopped. I just…"

Now he was lost for words. When his headaches had gone for a while, he was, of course, ecstatic about it but sceptical. Could this lovely, clever, helpful twenty-something year old geneticist really have fixed him on her first try? After a slew of cold and clinical specialists had been unsuccessful despite the benefit of seeing him in person for many uncomfortable sessions of questioning and poking and prodding?

He thought back to the week he had started to become hopeful that his headaches were truly gone.

_It had been a long and difficult case with no happy endings or consolations. As soon as he landed, he had turned down the offer to wind down over drinks, or sodas in his case, with his teammates. All he wanted to do was go home and speak to Maeve. He would have done just about anything to see her that night. Even if she did finally say yes to seeing him, it was fairly late and very short notice. Reid didn't want the first time he saw her to be after a heavy case and an extremely long and sleepless flight where he would just want to collapse into her arms and be reminded of the purity and goodness that he was fighting for and made the work worth it. _

_Reid had switched the lights on in his apartment once he arrived and wasted no time loosening his tie and collapsing backwards onto his sofa. He knew he should probably shower, unpack, sort his mail, and many other things before calling her but his heart was leaping in anticipation. He had nearly been collected by a taxi in his dreamy eagerness to race into his building. The remnants of the case were quickly fading into the back of his mind as he thought of telling her how his headaches had not returned despite the enormity of the stress involved that week. She was truly astounding. _

_He pressed the new sequence of numbers from memory into his phone – a different number each week she called him from curiously – and waited for her voice. _

_When she had answered, she sounded bright and giggly like she had been in a fit of laughter right before answering the phone._

_Reid, feeling a tightness in his chest, immediately felt stupid and wanted nothing more than to apologise profusely for disturbing her before throwing his phone across the room and smacking the encyclopedia lying on his coffee table against his head several times. _

_Of course, she would have company on a Friday night. Maeve was brilliant and funny and warm and incredibly intelligent and kind and probably extremely beautiful and…_

_"No, Spence, don't hang up," she said quickly, cutting off his embarrassed, mumbled apologies. "I'm sorry, is everything okay?" _

_"I just called to let you know…"_

_He heard the faint clinking of glass and music in the background. The laughter had not entirely left her voice like she was attempting to stifle her giggling. He felt his heart sink. Reid felt nearly unwell at his own audacity. He really thought she would like a phone call interrupting her Friday evening to let her know that his headaches were gone? Who did he think he was? _

_No wonder she had kept fabricating polite excuses when turning him down on the previous few occasions that he had felt bold enough to ask her to meet in person for various occasions. _

_He had been encouraged by the fact she sounded pleased each time by the idea and hadn't blatantly said no, there just had always been something in the way at the time. But now he knew she was just being kind. _

_"Sorry, you're busy. I'll email you later. It's really not important, I don't know why I…"_

_"No, no, Spence. Please don't go. Sorry, I'm being so rude," she said, immediately sounding remorseful. Great, now he had made her feel guilty and dampened her spirit. "I wasn't expecting you to call tonight. Normally I'd compose myself before I answer the phone but then I saw it was you and I just…sorry, I'm here now." _

_"No, really I don't want to keep you if you have plans or guests. It can wait. It's really not important." _

_"I'm glad you called," she sighed happily and sincerely although Reid knew of her kindness enough to not know for sure whether she was being honest. "And Arthur's a permanent house guest who takes up most of my attention so it's fair that he shares from time to time."_

_Reid paused in confusion. _

_"Arthur Conan Doyle," Maeve explained quickly, and Reid could hear her shake her head from side to side. "A stupid joke, sorry, it sounded funnier in my head. I think when you spend your nights with fictional characters it takes a toll on your ability to converse with actual people. I'm sorry you're always the unfortunate test subject in that instance." _

_Reid laughed lightly, feeling elated and wanting to confess he would happily converse with her every minute he had spare for the rest of his life. _

_"Which one are you reading tonight?" he asked leaning back into the cushion. He knew Arthur Conan Doyle was her favourite author. Whenever his mind wandered to her while he was working – which was becoming increasingly often – he always imagined her curled up somewhere warm reading one of her many Sherlock Holmes stories. _

_"The Dying Detective."_

_Reid somehow knew that the part she had found amusing was when Sherlock was pretending to be unwell to Watson. H__e had only read that particular book once many years ago, but he was thankful for his memory for the first time in a while and that it allowed him to recite the line that seemed to bring her such joy. "You and I, Watson, we have done our part. Shall the world, then, be overrun by oysters?"_

_The joke would have gone over most people's heads, but Maeve laughed - a beautiful, tinkling, carefree sound. He had heard her giggle slightly or chuckle appreciatively from time to time, but this was different.__He warmed at being the one to draw that lovely sound from her - with a little credit to Arthur Conan Doyle._

_"I'm sorry," she apologised again after she had recovered, and he heard her shut a book heavily with a weary sigh. "I'm not normally this loopy. I mean it's not that funny. I think I'm just sleep deprived and silly and I've had too much wine. Four glasses, I think? Well, mugs actually. I'm still unpacking and I tripped and smashed my box full of glassware so I'm drinking everything out of coffee mugs. My brother gave me a TARDIS mug when he came back from England but its square so it's challenging not to spill it everywhere. What a truly impractical shape for such a vessel. Hmm, actually its quite big. It's probably more than four glasses then. I don't even like wine but I ran out of juice and I got this bottle as a university graduation present from my Auntie but I was far too young to..._

_Reid listened with fascination. Maeve was usually very carefully guarded, always stopping herself when she revealed anything about herself and steered their conversations toward his life. Sometimes, she would give him something very small in an offhanded comment and he would piece it together with all the other little bits to try and formulate a picture of this girl that entranced him so.__He already knew she had siblings, watched Doctor Who every night when she was little, and graduated very early like himself. He noted that she didn't like wine and had recently moved which he found curious since she had done so three times since he first spoke to her.__"Anyway, I don't think I called to tell you about that. Oh, wait, you called me, didn't you?" she chuckled to herself and Reid guessed that she was probably quite small in stature if four glasses – mugs – were taking this much (albeit endearing) effect on her. Unless she didn't drink often which he guessed from the frequency of their calls that she didn't.__"What's up? Oh….duh, of course. I mean, why else would you be calling," she chuckled nervously for some reason. "How are our headaches going?"_

_She would always refer to it as their headaches as if his pain burdened her also._

_"They're…" Reid paused as he, for the first time, thought of the implications of his news and what it may mean. _

_Talking to Maeve. Writing to Maeve. It had become such an important – the most important – part of his life ever since she had made that witty, clever, contradictory comment on one of his articles all those months ago. They emailed back and forth a little enjoying the rare opportunity to engage with an intellectual equal – both assuming the other were significantly older than they were – but it was his asking for her opinion regarding his apparently incurable headaches that had sparked them to speak over the phone and, despite their trailing off for hours in letters and phone calls about anything and everything, had normally been the underlying excuse for their contact with each other. _

_She had been such a gift to him since. She never chastised him or even politely tolerated his spouting of facts and excited ramblings of information; she appeared to listen, understand everything, and chime in excitedly. Maeve was always apologising for her own rambling though her trait for doing the same thing as he was one of the things he loved most about her. Potentially only rivalled by her kindness and patience. He would speak so openly and freely about his mother and his concerns with her illness and his own fears about inheriting it. They often spoke about his nightmares and his recovery since his addiction to Dilaudid. She knew more about the inner parts of him than anyone and even though she was far more guarded than he, she was beginning to trust him with her own complicated parts of herself. _

_Whenever he heard or said something he found amusing that the team didn't understand – he wasn't disappointed anymore; he saved it up and shared it with Maeve that evening. It was the best part of his day to bring her some happiness. _

_But he didn't stop to think that it might all be over once his headaches had stopped and he no longer needed Maeve…medically. He still hadn't worked out how to best continue their relationship beyond this though he knew it would involve quite a lot of preparation and bravery to ask her. _

_Maybe it wouldn't hurt to wait a few more weeks – just to see if the headaches really were gone._

_"They're giving me some trouble but it's not unbearable."_

_Reid felt slightly guilty at Maeve's disappointed sigh. They spoke briefly about different remedies and narcotic free pain relief options and Maeve said she was going to do some more research over the weekend about the unidentified cause._

_The headaches didn't return but each time they spoke, he couldn't bring himself to risk cutting ties with her but still hadn't worked out how to express his feelings towards her. _

Now, as he was brought back to reality, he was beginning to wonder how badly his selfishness had hurt her as he listened to her cry.

"Maeve, I'm sorry again, really. I can't really explain why I didn't…Don't cry. Please don't be upset."

"No, I'm not upset. I'm relieved," she sniffled with a chuckle. "I…I really thought there was something really bad happening with you that I couldn't find and it was stressing me out to think that…I'm just happy you're okay."

She seemed to have composed herself as Reid heard her brush her tears away with her sleeve against the receiver.

"Gosh, I'm sorry. I'm acting like the stereotypical naive, weepy, girlish, small-town intern from a drama show. I promise I'm an actual functioning medical professional sometimes. I've cut people open before. Without crying."

Reid sighed, relieved that she wasn't upset with him but still riddled with guilt.

"Wait - why didn't you just tell me they had stopped?" she asked curiously interrupting her own spiel on how not one of her sister's Jodi Picoult novels had made her cry as a testament to her professional stoicism.

Here it comes. He was stupid to think he could've gotten away with not having this conversation. Reid tried to think of the most shameless way out.

"I don't know. I guess I didn't want to bother you. In case it was a false alarm."

"_Bother me_?" Maeve repeated tersely in a tone he hadn't heard from her before. Out of all the opportunities to become frustrated – this was the one she had chosen. "We've been calling and talking about…medication and alternate therapies and…and you didn't think it necessary to tell me that the problem I've been trying tirelessly to solve for months has already been fixed for what? Weeks? Months? I researched all kind of witchcraft voodoo for you. You don't understand what that…I've never…I cheated on science – the love of my life – you let…"

"I know, Maeve," Reid agreed apologetically. "I know after everything you've done for me, I've been wasting your time and making you doubt your abilities and keeping you up all night doing all this research. I feel so…"

"That's why you think I'm upset?!" she said loudly, her tone taking on a slightly hysterical note and he could tell she had stood up now.

"Spencer. I don't care about that stuff. I have been kept up all night because I've been terrified out of my mind for you, Spence. I had no idea what was wrong with you and every time I tried to close my eyes I kept picturing some kind of horrible something swooping around your head like an ominous bat that I just couldn't find. Every minute of the day, I would be pacing around here waiting like a stupid teenager for you to call because I'd be so afraid that it would kill you or send you to hospital or you would get badly hurt at work and I would just be stuck here with no way of knowing what happened to you. Do you know what it would do to me if I lost you? Do you think I care so little for you that I would be _bothered_ by you calling me? Like you're some kind of chore or inconvenience? I don't know what's more upsetting - that you think so little of me or so little of yourself." She took a much-needed pause for a drink before kicking off again. "More to the point, I have been dreaming about the time when you wouldn't be in pain anymore and we wouldn't have to start our conversations on such a bad-"

"Have-dinner-with-me," he blurted out barely tangible before he could stop himself.

"What?"

Reid scrunched his long, messy hair in one of his fists while he gripped the phone with the other and felt his heart hammering. He didn't mean to ask her so clumsily and during her rant about her frustrations with him, but he had realised while listening to her speak just how hopelessly head over heels he had become, and he was taken over by a rare bout of impulsivity.

"I...I would very much like to take you to dinner, Maeve."

She tutted and sighed like he had missed the point. "That's really kind of you but you don't have to do that, Spencer. Despite my temper tantrum, I'm so glad that you're better and it really was my pleasure to help. Selfishly so, it was a bit of distraction for me to work on so don't feel-"

"No," Reid said with a spark of determination and courage that became more short-lived the longer he spoke. "Not to say thank you - not that I'm _not_ thankful for you. I am, irrevocably…but mainly, I would like to take you, I guess, as part of…the, you know, the social process where two people who…get along…meet socially for companionship, b-beyond the current…friendship, I suppose…or you know to see…to assess suitability for…p-potential…um, it doesn't have to be dinner. Any kind of social activity can, can work just fine."

Reid wondered if he'd had some kind of absent seizure as he butchered every word in one of most important sentences he thought he'd ever say.

Maeve finally answered him after her own attempts to piece together his flurry of words. "Are you…trying to ask me on a date?"

Reid let out a relieved and silly sigh. "Yes. Though, I'm not doing a very good job of it."

"No, not at all. But it was very enjoyable listening to you try."

He smiled. "You're being avoidant again."

Maeve sighed and he could hear her biting at her nails which indicated she was anxious.

Reid immediately backpedalled to attempt to salvage their friendship at least. "Sorry, I shouldn't have asked. It was stupid, I don't know what I-"

"No, no, I want to," she said quickly, and Reid pressed the phone more closely to his ear to make sure he had heard her right. "I really do."

"But…?" he said sensing the hesitation in her voice.

She was silent for a few seconds besides her nervous chewing.

"Spence, I feel awful right now and I hope you don't get too upset with me although you would be rightful to. You have been so wonderfully open and honest with me and I really can't say how much that means to me but I…I really haven't been as honest and forthcoming back…"

"That's fine!" he said with a chuckle. "That's what this period is for. I know it's felt a bit unbalanced I mean you've seen my brain scans and my whole medical history and I would never have you feel like you needed to be as open…truly, I would be so happy with anything you wanted to start with."

"Oh, you're making this harder," she sounded distressed. "There's…there's a lot. You don't want to get involved in my life. It's…a mess right now. There's so much you don't know. If you did, you wouldn't ever-"

"I know enough about you to know how much I care for you," he said seriously. Never in a million years would he think the issue with their pursing a relationship would be _Maeve_ not feeling good enough for _him_. "And messy? Maeve. You know everything about me. I have a basic grasp of social skills. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic, I'm a recovering drug addict, I'm an insomniac and caffeine-dependent, my work hours are-"

"Spence, Spence," she stopped his torrent of self-flogging. "I know. We're both life-time members of the perpetually messed up baby geniuses club and that comes with…a lot of stuff. But it's a lot more than that…there's some stuff going on that's bad. Really bad. And I don't want you to be involved in it."

"Are you sick?" Reid quickly panicked as he pieced together some of the strange feelings he'd had over the course of their correspondence. She had trouble sleeping and didn't go outside or have people over. She moved around a lot and had been on an extended break from work. A hundred – no, a thousand – illnesses and diseases that could take her away from him flew across his mind and it felt like the surface had dropped from beneath him as he imagined watching helplessly as she deteriorated in front of him.

"No, no," she said quickly. "It's not that."

"You're not some kind of criminal on the run are you?" Reid joked and even though she was stressed he could detect the hint of a smile in her voice.

"Because if I were, I'm going to give up my felonious past to you," she scoffed.

"You never know. If it was a good enough reason, I might be on your side?"

"I didn't know the dodgy underbelly of genetic medicine would be of any interest to you, _Agent_ Reid."

"So that's your 'dangerous life' then? Black market genetic research?"

"Of course not, silly," she said with a chuckle but then silence fell between them again.

"Maeve, I could talk in circles with you all night – and although I wouldn't have a problem with that, just tell me what it is. You won't scare me away."

"I'm worried about the opposite actually," she admitted quietly almost as if to herself before she took a deep, hesitant breath. "Okay, I have someone…I guess, following me."

"…following you?" he repeated in confusion.

"Okay, I guess it's a bit more serious than that," she sighed and paused thoughtfully. "Not long before we started talking, I started getting strange notes left at work from someone…I don't know who. Sometimes phone calls. Just heavy breathing and then he would hang up. At first, I didn't worry about it too much. I just thought it might have been some game between the interns. I was too little to engage in anything like that when I started out, but I know from movies they do weird stuff like that sometimes. Then it turned into emails and letters every day and they got…frustrated that I wasn't noticing them and angry I was ignoring their letters. I tried talking to my boss about it, but it was really hard. It's always been a struggle to get my coworkers to take me seriously because of my age but he's always been quite supportive and he lets me do my work. I thought he may be the best person to tell. You know I'm the only girl there so at first he dismissed it as, I don't know, admiration or a crush or something. I told him that they seemed quite angry and he thought it was just jealousy or resentment. Research can be a really toxic environment…"

Maeve had told him this before. She had been unprepared, at a very young age and with such innocent aspirations to help people, for the competitiveness and ruthlessness of the institution. He would always feel grateful for his own work family when she recounted some of the stories. He had no idea how someone could thrive in those kinds of conditions especially someone as kind and caring as her.

"…anyway I just stopped opening them or throwing them straight into the bin. It made things worse. Little things started happening. I slammed into a car because the breaks on my bike had been cut. The saline solution I was working with in the lab was replaced with some kind of acid. I had to go to hospital for chemical burns on my hands. He started sending messages to my personal email and home somehow. That's when they started becoming really bad."

"What did they say?" Reid urged, his heart thumping in panic. He could recite the book on this type of criminology and he already knew what comes next.

Maeve hesitated. "A lot of anger about me ignoring him. Not seeing him. Things like that."

"Maeve, please."

She took a shaky breath. "T-that I was going to see him. Finally notice him when he…that we're…we're going to die together. He'll kill me and then himself."

_No._

Reid's mind was already running a million miles an hour. He had already come up with several viable options while she was talking. "Did you go to the police?"

"I did once," she said quietly. "My parents made me. I-I told them, well, I didn't tell them any details. They were going through a lot, but I, I just said that someone at work was giving me a hard time. Like it was high school stuff. They still pressed for me to go though. They took some of the letters and said they probably wouldn't be able to get anything but they'd try. B-but the next day…I really shouldn't be telling you this," she started to panic.

"No, Maeve, I'm right here," Reid said, desperate to keep her on the phone and to get as much information as he possible could. "It's going to be okay, just tell me what happened."

She was shaking uncontrollably now and he strained to hear her as clearly. "I had stayed at my parents house in-in my old room after…I felt something on my legs when I woke up. It was m-my parents dog. That wasn't really unusual – Murphy liked to…sometimes…" she was trying to talk through sobs and Reid felt completely powerless on the other side of the phone. He wanted to stop her words and soothe her and talk about nothing but books and science and poetry and nothing that causes her pain but at the same time he had to know everything. He had to stop this.

"My family don't even know – they just thought Murphy was getting old and…oh god, I don't know what to do if they found out. It was my fault! I knew he was angry and dangerous and I should have stayed away from my parents. I don't – I don't know how he broke in and no one heard him. He was in my bedroom while I was sleeping and I didn't hear…I didn't hear anything. He-he killed Murphy and left me a letter saying if I went to the police again he…he would make me watch my family…"

Maeve completely broke down at that point. Reid was filled with equal parts horror and rage and heartbreak. For the moment, though, he focused all his energy on her. He kept murmuring her name, soothing her through her tears. She eventually took a deep, shaky breath and started hiccupping. He would have found it endearing if he could feel anything other than anguish.

"Maeve, where are you?" he asked gently but seriously. He was already reaching for his keys. He had to go and get her and keep her safe while he fixed this.

"No," Maeve hiccupped. "No, Spence, you can't…you can't come near me. Especially you. No."

"Maeve, it's going to be okay. I won't tell anyone where you are. Please let me come and get you. I can keep you safe. I can…"

"It doesn't matter," she shook her head. "He knows where I am. He…he always does. It doesn't matter where I go. How many times I move or change my number. He's there…always. I just have to keep…keep going until he gives up. I've actually been handling it okay so far. It's…it's really not often as it used to be."

Reid was not reassured by her faint attempts at alleviating his worry. He felt nauseous and infuriated thinking about this faceless creep following Maeve wherever she went, standing over her while she slept, threatening her, fantasising about killing her, forcing her to be away from her work and her home and family. He was a profiler for goodness sake! Was he so wrapped up in his own selfish infatuation that he couldn't detect that something of this magnitude was happening to her? He couldn't believe that this beautiful girl who had fixed him and he had started to think of as a guardian angel was living alone in constant danger.

"Maeve…"

"It's okay, Spencer," Maeve tried to sound reassuring. "I know it's heavy and dramatic and just…too much. There's a lot…even without my stalker….there's so much _stuff_. I'm just so thankful that I got to know you at all and you wouldn't begin to know how much better you've made…everything. I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier – just talking to you means everything to me and I'm so sorry for wasting your time and just being generally a mess. You really deserve-"

"Maeve, no," Reid dismissed her absurd thought quickly. "_Of course_, I still want to be with you. And this, this is good. I can help you now. My team, we deal with this kind of thing all the time and we'll find him and-"

"No!" Maeve cut him off suddenly. "Spencer, I don't want you to get involved. If he ever found out about you…"

"We can handle it."

"No, I'm not letting you do that," she said seriously. "If-if we're going to make this work, you have to trust me to take care of it."

Reid exhaled in frustration at the thinly veiled ultimatum.

"Maeve, if anything happened to you-"

"I promise I will ask for help if I need it but you have to promise me you won't get involved until then. Please Spencer," she pleaded.

Reid's knuckles were white from gripping the phone too tightly. He was filled with uncharacteristic rage at this man for hurting Maeve and putting her through all this torment. She must be so lonely and scared all the time. His mind was in a battle with itself. He wanted nothing more than for her to be safe but she would only be with him if he didn't interfere. If he refused, she would probably cut off all contact with him to try to keep him safe and it would make the task even harder. He just needed more time to convince her to trust him…

"Okay," he murmured reluctantly. "But if he does anything-"

"You'll be the first to know," she said sincerely. "I promise."

They sat in silence for a minute before Reid cleared his throat.

"So, where does this leave us?"

Maeve sighed. "It'll be hard, Spence. We'll have to be careful. If we're going to do this, I'll get a prepaid sim card and change my number again. You'll have to be careful how you call. If he somehow finds my phone records, he'll see your number…"

"I'll use payphones," he suggested. "Work takes me all over the country so it'll never be the same one twice."

"Okay," Maeve said, her lightness returning. "I've got a post box at my post office under a fake name. We can send letters? I know a lot of people don't do it anymore but…I think its nice."

"That would be wonderful."

"We should probably use different names just in case.":

"This is like an Ian Fleming novel," Reid joked but immediately regretted it as she responded.

"You're right. It isn't okay. This is too much. This isn't _normal_-" she stressed.

"Maeve, Maeve," Reid sighed with an empty chuckle. "I was just joking. I'm not going anywhere. Why don't you pick my pseudonym?"

She thought for a moment and Reid could tell her eyes were scanning the books likely scattered in front of her. "Dr Joseph Bell?"

Reid laughed. "They're big shoes to fill."

"Do mine now."

There weren't any heroines, fictional or nonfictional that could possibly live up to Maeve in his eyes so he tried to think of someone she might like when his eyes landed on a Doctor Who DVD.

"Zoe Heriot."

Maeve chuckled softly earning a smile from Reid. He was glad she had stopped crying.

"One of the best companions, I think," he continued. "And a lot like you. She's incredibly young, she's a genius with a degree in pure mathematics, she's a librarian and astrophysicist and she has a photographic memory. Her intelligence is comparable to the Doctor himself."

"Not to mention she's completely useless in the real world and always getting into trouble because of it. A lot like me."

"We have that in common," he smiled. "Hopefully, one day we can work on it together."

"I hope so too." He was pleased to hear a little hopefulness in her voice though she sounded extremely tired.

The clock on his fireplace notified Reid that it was far later than he thought.

"Wow, look how long we've been talking."

There was a pause on the other end and Reid assumed Maeve was looking at the time in her own place.

"Oh my stars, I'm so sorry! You're probably exhausted from your case and I've been rambling on about my life story and devising secret plans like a 1920's private detective. And sleep is the most important thing for your headaches. Wow, I truly have no idea how I'm a doctor."

"Who's being silly now?" he teased lightly. "Are you going to be able to sleep okay?"

"I only nap here and there. I never feel safe sleeping for too long a time."

Reid sighed sadly and expressed his wish out loud. "I wish I could be there."

"Me too," Maeve admitted as equally sad. "But this is how it has to be…for now at least."

"I know that," he said. "I'm just happy I get to be with you in any way…even if it's like this."

"Me too," Maeve said again. They were silent for a couple of minutes, neither of them wanting to say goodbye but knowing they had to. He wandered into his bedroom and laid down with the phone still to his ear. He looked at the nightstand to his left and saw a book.

"Hey, do you have _The Bell Jar_?"

"Of course," she said. "It's here somewhere."

Reid heard her rummaging before making the cutest little victorious noise he'd ever heard.

"I have it!"

"Okay," Reid said. "Now take it into your bedroom."

"Alright." He heard the soft padding of her feet on carpet.

"Now get into bed."

"Dr Reid, we've only been dating for half an hour."

He chuckled. "Maeve."

"Sorry," she smiled and he heard her collapse onto pillows. "Alright, I'm here."

"Alright, why don't we both read it so even we're not together, we're doing the same thing."

Maeve whined. "That's not fair. You read so much faster than me."

"I'm much slower at recreational reading. I'll try and go even slower to keep up with you common folk."

"Very funny. What happened to intelligence comparable to the Doctor himself?"

Reid laughed. "So, lets read up to Chapter Four tonight and we can write about it tomorrow? I might be flying out so I don't know when I can call next…"

"That sounds nice. The smallest book club in the world."

"The best one though," he said fondly.

She gave a sleepy yawn. "Yeah."

"Maeve," he said gently but as seriously as he could. "Call me anytime tonight – or anytime really – if you need anything."

"I promise I will."

"Thank you," Reid said. "Thank you for telling me everything and…well, everything before and after that."

"Despite all the horrible stuff, I think this is my favourite conversation yet," Maeve said sleepily.

"Mine too," he told her.

"Goodnight, Spence."

"Goodnight, Maeve."

**I hope this flashback of the beginning of Reid and Maeve's relationship works well with what people have imagined for themselves. I wrote it and posted a version of it a long time ago but I've tinkered around with it since to fit in with the idea of this AU story (and somehow made it even longer-sorry!). Please review if you like with any feedback or direction you would like to see should you be interested in continuing. Thanks again! **


	4. Chapter 4

_Seven years before_

It was not long past midnight when Joe Donovan pulled into the driveway of his family home. Branches of the overgrown orange tree scraped the top of his car roof and he made a mental note to trim it down on the weekend. With all the large landscaping projects he'd taken on, his own home had fallen to the wayside.

Even though he had worked in the landscaping business for a long time, Mary was the family gardener and was often pottering around with her watering can, planting new trees and cutting the flowers to make floral arrangements for the house. But she had recently undergone another round of chemotherapy and their son had been guarding her dutifully to make sure she rested.

Joe turned his coat up as he got out of the truck – it was chilly this time of year and especially this time of night. Aware of how late it was, he gently shut the car door as to not wake his wife or son if they were sleeping inside. He grabbed his toolbox from the back and whistled to Murphy, their dog, to hop down and follow him to the front door.

As he was kicking off his muddy boots on the porch, he paused as he breathed in the familiar scent of cinnamon, clove, and peppermint.

His youngest child must have visited tonight_._

Even though he was disappointed in missing out on seeing her, he knew it would have made Mary so happy. Trying to catch Maeve was like trying to catch smoke since she started saving the world and curing diseases and revolutionising a whole lot of science things that were lost on him – but it didn't make him any less proud of his wee Space Cadet. When Mary became unwell, all his children had responded differently. Maeve had predictably thrown herself into research and had nearly become an oncology resident overnight. He hoped tonight had been a rare social call that didn't involve the inner workings of some Swedish study on somatic mutations or something rather.

He stepped inside quietly and put his keys on the small hall table. Their house was narrow – as were many suburban houses in the neighbourhood – with a long hallway with their bedroom coming off and an open kitchen, dining and living room at the end. The kid's old bedrooms were upstairs – still mostly intact. Murphy made a bee-line for the end and Joe was about to follow when he noticed a familiar yellow, slightly tattered backpack dumped by the door, weighed down by some kind of heavy book.

Joe could hear quiet murmuring and rustling around down near the kitchen. When he walked in, he saw Maeve sitting on the kitchen counter with her legs swinging anxiously, wavy hair was curtaining both sides of her cheeks so he couldn't see her face nor had she noticed him. Murphy was under her dangling feet watching her shoes sway with interest. Mary stood in front of Maeve with a pack of frozen peas in one hand and antiseptic wipes in the other. The first aid kit was upended on the counter next to Maeve.

This didn't concern Joe much at first. His memories of Maeve's childhood were littered with bruises, bumps, cuts, concussions, burns, dislocations, fractured bones and sprains. She was always brilliant but devastatingly clumsy. Not to mention her curious mind always made them end up in the emergency room because she threw herself off the roof for a physics theory or blew up the backyard for a chemistry experiment.

Clearly whatever she had done was a result of her hapless ways as Mary fluttered around her – tense and upset.

"I can't believe this. How could you ke-"

"How are my girls tonight?" Joe interrupted them, dropping his toolbox on the dining table. Both women jumped and Mary dropped what she was holding in surprise and quickly stood in front of Maeve plastering on a surprised but welcoming face.

"Joe! We didn't hear you get in!"

"Aye, love. I thought you'd be in bed. I thought the Tomlinson job would take all night," he tried going around his wife to put the coffee pot on but she blocked him again.

"Ach, Mary. Surely, I can have _one _coffee? That twig of an apprentice is doin' my head in so." he joked.

"No, no," she waved her hands nervously. "I'll make your coffee, you go sit down. Tea, Maeve? Longjing tea to keep that beautiful brain of yours grand?"

"S-sure, thanks Mum," Maeve replied, a pitch too high and shivering as if she were freezing despite the warmth emanating from the fireplace in the living room opposite. She was fiddling with the sleeves of her shirt, pulling them over her wrists and avoiding her father's eyes as he watched her suspiciously from where he was sat at the dining table.

His daughter was, for lack of more eloquent word, a complete chatterbox. Endless facts, boundless statistics, ceaseless trivia. She haemorrhaged information. When she was little, her brother had once asked her for help on a classic literature assignment and three and a half hours later, he emerged from her room panting, desperate for food, air, sustenance. The rest of the family would roll their eyes and groan when she got excited and started on one of her energetic tangents, but Joe always thought it was one of her most beautiful qualities and encouraged her much to the family's chagrin.

Not that it happened a great deal anymore. In fact, it had been a very long time since Maeve had attended any kind of family gathering. She would always cancel at the last minute, her voice shaking through an obvious lie in her voice messages – always reassuring them that everything was fine. Joe had begun to worry about her since the last time she had essentially been tricked into coming over. Mary had feigned feeling particularly unwell so Maeve would come over and she could surprise her with her wedding dress. His eldest daughter, Ingrid, had chosen a new dress for her own wedding and Mary knew how much Maeve had loved the old dress and would trace the patterns in the fabric when she was little. Joe would never agree to deceive Maeve like that normally but he could literally see the improvement in Mary's condition when she thought about giving Maeve her dress.

Unfortunately, the idea had been a complete disaster. Maeve had looked panicked and frozen, they collectively thought due to the embarrassment of them all being there. When Ingrid had jokingly tried to force the dress over Maeve's head to let them see, she had snapped out of her statute-like state and screamed in horror pushing the dress off of her with such vigor that it crumpled to the floor quite dramatically. Maeve had apologised tearfully, looking as shocked as the rest of them and ran out the house with her hand over her mouth. Mary had sighed when she folded the dress carefully over her arm and told Joe that Maeve always felt everything stronger than everyone else and wedding nerves wouldn't be an exception.

But it only furthered the concerns Joe was already harbouring.

Bobby Putnam was always cheery and charismatic. The Putnam's lived on the same street as theirs and Bobby had attended the same school as Maeve for the few years that Maeve was in high school. Even after Maeve had graduated early from school, Bobby had been her only friend for years until her internship. It had been sweet when they were little – a friendship encouraged by both families to prompt Bobby to become less rough and tumble and more focused on school and for Maeve to learn to be more sociable and less shy around kids her own age. Though as Maeve got older, Joe was starting to become concerned that this friendly protector of Maeve's was starting to become the reason she didn't have anyone else.

He knew it was more than fatherly concern. As their relationship progressed, he was the only one uneased by the seemingly charming boy. For one, he always stopped Maeve during one of her excited speeches to tell her to calm down or make fun of whatever she was so passionate about and make Maeve blush in all the wrong ways. The rest of the family didn't take any notice but Joe discerned how she would stay quiet for the entire evening and eventually turned into her rarely speaking at all unless spoken to and even then she spoke nervously and carefully – and always apologising if she thought she said the wrong thing.

He would tense with anger when he saw Bobby chuckle and wrap his arm around Maeve and whisper into her ear like Ingrid and her husband would. But there was nothing sweet and loving about the action and he would always say things along the lines of: _"The topic's closed for discussion, Maeve." "We'll talk about this at home." "Don't embarrass us in front of all these people, darling." "I thought I told you be normal tonight." _

It sent shivers down Joe's spine and he so desperately wanted to talk to Maeve about it but Mary and Ingrid had forbidden it. They were convinced Maeve would never forgive him if he ruined her first relationship. Which was a ridiculous notion since he knew someone could accidentally stab Maeve and she would apologise for being in their way. The engagement is what finally drove Joe to confront Maeve about it. All four elder Donovan's filed into the Putnam's barbeque under strict instructions and etiquette pep talks from Ingrid.

Then Bobby proposed to Maeve in front of everybody with his grandmother's ring. Joe watched the inner torment battle across his youngest child's face as she struggled in the situation she was in and even glanced up at her father for a brief second fearfully. Ingrid quickly stuffed a bread roll into his mouth as he opened it to say something but by then Bobby had crushed a still speechless Maeve to him before she was swept away by a horde of squealing sister-in-laws-to-be (_The Flakes_ is what the Donovan's called this particular group of women).

He wondered if it was reluctant wedding plans and pretentious in-laws that had gotten his little one so down and quiet this evening.

"Earth to Space Cadet?" he said to her. "Is anyone home?"

Maeve's head popped up for a split second to acknowledge him but then dropped back down hastily – but it was enough for him to notice. Joe stood up so quickly that the wooden dining chair fell backwards against the floor with a bang and Maeve jumped in surprise.

"Mary!" he thundered. "If that's what I think…"

Mary dropped the coffee pot on the bench and quickly zoomed over with her palms out calmingly to where her husband was marching toward Maeve. "Now, calm down, love. Lets not blow our..."

Joe's lifted Maeve's face up and she flinched away out of his grasp. Her eyes and cheeks were rosy from crying but one cheek was extremely hot and scarlet – the skin slightly raised up and welted and a purple bruise was forming across her cheekbone. He wasn't sure if the bloodied tissues in her lap where from her still slightly bleeding nose or the matching cut underneath adorning her lip. He lifted up her palms that were covered in painful looking little gashes and grazes that went down to her wrists. Blood speckled the sleeves of her white shirt. There was a pile of tiny splinters of bloodied glass next the tweezers on the bench with rubbing alcohol.

"I'm-I'm okay. I-I f-fell o..."

Joe dropped his daughter's arms as he was overcome with rage. She could barely talk without sounding winded.

"Joe, you need to stay calm, okay? We'll sort this. Remember what the doctor said about your blood pressure…"

"…it's n-not that bad. Y-you know how easily I-I bruise."

"We can have a cuppa and calm down..."

"DAMN THE TEA, MARY!" Joe yelled and Maeve jumped at his voice and he immediately felt guilty at scaring her but he was too wound up to calm himself.

He spun on his heel to face his wife. "That…that…cretin has been beating our daughter!"

"I'm n-not being _beaten. _I-it looks worse than it-it is. I know it was-wasn't okay to do but the-the rest I did...myself. You-you know how clumsy I can b-be. I fell into t-the table and that-that's how I got all th-these," she murmured through hysterical shaking as if her explanation and the fact she couldn't even hold her hands still would make him feel better.

"Right, but this isn't the first time is it, aye?" Joe said turning to Maeve again. "Is it, Maeve?"

Maeve was trembling now, too terrified to look at her father. That was enough for Joe.

"Were you wide of this?" he rounded on Mary who had bustled over with the drinks.

She exhaled incredulously pushing a cup of coffee into his shaking hands. "Catch yourself on, Joe. Do you think I would have let her stay there if I knew? But there's no point getting frazzled."

"_Frazzled?_ _FRAZZLED_? Mary. Lord, give me strength," Joe dropped his cup on the bench and pinched the bridge of his nose while he paced the kitchen.

Maeve shifted off the counter and put on the most unconvincing display of composure. "I-I'm fine. I-I don't want you to f-fight over this. It's my problem, I can sort it out. I'm sure it..."

In any other situation, Maeve would have laughed at how her father's expression got more and more incredulous by the second. She had never seen him fired up this much over anything other than artificial plants and Gaelic football.

"Maeve Luna, is your head cut? You best wise up if you think you're going anywhere tonight," Mary said placing down the tea in a sternly business-like fashion. "You'll not be sorting this out tonight."

"Dead on," Joe nodded. "_I'll_ be sort this out."

He grabbed his keys off the counter. Both women flurried around him.

"Joseph Donovan, you'll be doing nothing of the sort!"

"Dad! No!" Maeve grabbed at his sleeve as he tried to walk down the hallway. She didn't let go despite how painful it must have been on her cut up hands.

At that moment, Alfie Donovan's shaggy copper-haired head popped out from his bedroom door to see what all the commotion was about. He hobbled out on crutches from snowboarding in Austria or surfing in Waikiki or skateboarding on the way to one of the many jobs he had. It was hard to keep track.

"What's all this?" he said sleepily. "Oh! Mae! What are you doing here this late?"

"That goblin has been beating ye sister."

"Serious? Mae, what-"

"I'm putting this right."

"I'm coming too," Alfie declared and hobbled after his father.

Maeve grabbed him by his collar and yanked him back, choking him. "Absolutely not!"

Alfie was very tall but a twiggy beanpole even without his injury.

"Dad!" Maeve called out after her father but the door slammed behind him with finality leaving his daughter terrified and distraught in the hallway.

"It's okay, love," Mary said smoothing down Maeve's hair and Alfie leaned on one of his crutches to wrap his arm around her.

"Alfie, can you throw all my things into Ingrid's room please so I can clear off your sisters bed?"

Maeve was unable to feel little else besides anxiousness, guilt, and fear. But there was a small and rare leap of relief in her heart when she realised that she had finally come home.


	5. Chapter 5

_Seven years before_

After forty-five minutes and three cups of herbal tea, Maeve managed to convince her mother and brother that she was okay to go to bed. Or more so that she could wait in anxiety alone for her father to calm down and return home. She closed the heavy wooden door behind her as she went to her old room. She closed her eyes and slid down the back of the door until she was sitting on the floor. Staring at the ceiling, speckled with the glow-in-the-dark plastic stars, she wiped away a few stray tears feeling particularly pathetic and angry at herself.

The day had started out innocently enough. She was at the lab before the sun came up as she was every day. Currently her team were working on a Neurofibromatosis case but she was analysing mutated cells and scans of the tumours by herself.

The department heads were enthralled with her work and she felt fortunate in how generous they had been with giving her resources for whatever she was working on. However, her other, much older colleagues were less than impressed that a twenty-something-year-old had so easily fallen into and excelled in the position that they had spent decades trying to obtain. This isolation forced her to push her desk up against the window and work on her own theories by herself and report her findings directly to her supervisor.

Maeve desperately missed working in diagnostic medicine and the friends she had there. She checked her email to see that Oliver, probably her best friend of the lot, had sent her a patient file asking for her help with it. She smiled and put it aside to work on in between her jobs for the day – it was nice to be able to work with them even if unofficially and from a distance.

Maeve had left her desk momentarily that morning to pick up some bloodwork she had requested and when she had returned there was a glass bowl of skilfully arranged forget-me-not's next to her microscope. Bobby had been very cold and angry towards her lately since he had dropped her at work a few weeks ago and incidentally discovered that she was the only female in her department so she was surprised he had sent her flowers. He hadn't given her flowers since high school. Maeve hoped the small gesture meant it would be safe to go home earlier in the evening.

Maeve left not long after everyone else did, placing the flowers carefully in the basket of her bike and rode to her apartment nearby. She was so exquisitely happy about submitting her findings from the research her team were conducting and resolving Oliver's case that she forgot to be cautious as she bounded up the stairs.

When she unlocked the door, Bobby was at the table, rubbing his temple as he looked over multiple sheets of paper. He was an electrician at his family's successful small business and his father was currently taking him through the management side of things in preparation for his own retirement.

"Hello!" she smiled bouncing on her toes holding the bowl of flowers in both hands.

"Hi," Bobby mumbled, not taking his eyes off his work as he punched some numbers into a calculator.

"How was your day?" she asked, hanging her bag up and placing the bowl of flowers on the ground as she took her shoes off.

He shrugged. "Busy."

"I can see," she commented. "It looks like your Dad's printed the whole curriculum of the Harvard Business School! Two more months of this and you probably qualify for discounted bus-"

"It's probably hard for someone like you to believe but people in the real world with jobs of actual use and value get them through hard work not multiple pieces of paper."

Maeve froze at the change in his voice. "I-I know you do. Work hard, that is. I...c-can I help?" she asked, trying to sound bright as she hesitantly moved to the table. "It's been a long time since we did homework together but it used to be fun and...and I make better coffee now. I'm a bit useless at administrative things but I...I remember the basics of the primary electrical parameters and I can always do the mathe-"

Bobby violently ripped the piece of paper Maeve picked up out of her hands. "Is this a joke to you? This isn't some dumb high school project, Maeve. This is my business and even though you think you're better than everyone at everything, you don't know the first thing about it.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, closing in on herself. Maeve felt the coldness of Bobby's voice seep into her and she turned away hastily. Bobby looked up for the first time and sighed, rubbing his head as he watched her unbutton her jacket silently by the kitchen. "I'm sorry, Maeve. It's been a long day."

"T-that's okay," she said quietly, slightly encouraged by the softening in his voice.

"How was your day?" he asked walking over to her. She stiffened despite her efforts to be receptive as possible to the hug he gave her. She tried focusing on the question.

"It-it was good. I-I recently did a journal article on neurofibromatosis and...it was wonderful because I got sent the file of a patient who had neurofibromatosis type 1 and had a tumour formation on the brain – that's not wonderful, of course. I didn't mean that. But what _was_ wonderful is that the neurofibromas were benign so they have a much slower growth rate than malignant tumours and the positioning of them should make it relatively easy to operate. They can still cause damage compressing other nerves and tissue so they still have to be taken out but it should be much simpler than they first thought!"

Bobby stared blankly at her lit-up face before sighing out a weary '_okay' _before his grip on her changed. "_They? _As in your old work?"

"Oh, y-yeah. They sent me, um, they asked if I could..."

"You don't work there anymore, Maeve," Bobby said coldly. "They shouldn't be sending you anything. I told you they were only interesting in-"

"I-I know," Maeve said quickly, her heart racing. "I'm sorry. I-I just get too overexcited sometimes and-and..."

"It's okay," Bobby sighed, and brushed her hair out of her face in a way that Maeve knew should be endearing but just made her tremble slightly. "I know you do."

Grateful for this improved mood change, Maeve shifted out of his arms with the premise of putting her coat away. When she came back out, Bobby had started dinner which was uncharacteristic but then she remembered the flowers and hoped this kindness and minimal anger towards her could last until the end of the weekend.

Maeve moseyed over to their windowsill and placed the bowl of flowers on the ledge next to the bonsai tree Ingrid and her husband had given them as an engagement present. Maeve was still in a battle to keep the thing alive. She made a mental note to pick up a book on bonsai trees tomorrow when she planned to escape to the library for a while.

"Forget-me-not's," she said happily delicately stroking one of the small blue petals. "Henry David Thoreau wrote: _"The mouse-ear forget-me-not, Myosotis laxa, has now extended its racemes very much, and hangs over the edge of the brook. It is one of the most interesting minute flowers. It is the more beautiful for being small and unpretending; even flowers must be modest_. Thank you, by the way. They're beautiful. I would have kept them at my desk but I wouldn't put it past one of them to pour hydrochloric acid into them out of bitterness. Did you know that giving flowers as gifts extends back thousands of years to the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and the Chinese as a way of communicating? The custom became popular in the Victorian…"

"What?"

"Well, you see, that was in the time when it wasn't the social norm to openly express emotion so…"

"No," Bobby shook his head and his eyes were furious, confusing Maeve. "_I_ didn't send you those."

Maeve drew her hand away from the flowers so fast as if the petals had burned her. "Y-you didn't?"

Bobby was suddenly in front of her, eyes burning with anger. She nervously picked up the bowl and inspected the bottom of it.

"They're probably from my mother. She liked to-"

Bobby smacked the bowl from her hands and it crashed at her feet sending flowers, soil and glass everywhere. She jumped at the noise and even more so at his tone of voice.

"Don't be stupid, Maeve. You know they're from _him!_"

The glass crunched under his shoes as he stepped towards her while yelling. She instinctively moved backwards until she was leaning against the window.

"Who is he?!"

"I-I don't know. I told you, I don't know."

Bobby scoffed and Maeve put her arms around herself to stop herself from shaking.

"Maeve, come on. We went to the police and they said it has to be someone you know. You must know if someone is this _infatuated_ by you. You're not that interesting, Maeve. They're wouldn't be many."

Maeve shook her head from side to side and bit her lip to stop herself from crying. "I-I don't..."

"It has to be someone from your work. You're the only girl there. Or from your old job with those creepy geeks that live in their mother's basements. I told you I didn't like it. This is what happened when you don't listen to me!"

Maeve didn't say anything and that only seemed to make Bobby angrier.

"Oh my god, are you _enjoying_ this, Maeve? Do you like this attention?"

"Of course, I don't! I-I hate it and.. I'm scared all the time. I've tried to...I went to the police with..."

"Yeah, and do you remember what the police said? That it's most likely a current or former lover."

"Well, it's...it's not-"

"How often is it?" Bobby asked angrily and Maeve felt claustrophobic with the limited space he was giving her as she sunk back into the wall.

"How often what?"

"How often is a stalker a current or former lover?"

"I-I don't know."

"Come on, Maeve, you're supposed to be this all-knowing genius after all. You remember everything you've ever heard or read. How often is it?"

"66% of the time," she said quietly. "B-but you know that's not true. I've only ever been with you."

Even though he knew she wasn't lying, it didn't make him any less mad. He gripped her forearms tightly.

"Then someone is getting the wrong idea from you. How do you even act when you're at work or when I'm not around? Do people know that you're engaged?"

"Yes, yes. I think so," Maeve said as Bobby shook her slightly and she tried her hardest to not cry as she felt the capillaries burst in her arms under his fingers. "Bobby, you're hurting me."

Bobby spun her around so she wasn't against the wall anymore and let her arms go but still towered over her.

"Well, you're not acting like it then. I've seen how friendly you are to people and god knows what you're like when I'm not around to see. Pretty little scientist prancing around your laboratory with your silly imagination off with the fairies. Still talking to the creeps at your old work. It's no wonder men don't realise that you already belong to me."

"I… I don't," she stammered quietly.

"Don't what, Maeve?"

She inhaled shakily. "I…I don't _belong_ to you, Bobby."

The first thing she registered was a loud sound before an intense stinging on her face and a sharp pain in her neck from twisting to the side so suddenly. Her eyes filled with tears at the red-hot pain stinging across her cheek and her heart felt like it was beating in her face.

Maeve reached her hand up to the side of her face in shock and stumbled backwards from the dizziness. She felt Bobby's fingers unsuccessfully grapple at her blouse to keep her upright but she toppled back on to the coffee table.

The pain in her face was quickly overshadowed by the stinging pain in her hands and arms before the unmistakable feeling of wetness soaking through her sleeves.

"Dammit, Maeve!" Bobby said putting his hands behind his head and scrunching his face. "You can't say that kind of stuff to me, okay? Not after everything I've done for you. We're a team. One can't be without the other, remember?"

Still in shock, she knelt on the floor surrounded by glass and the gentle sound of blood dripping on to the cream carpet.

"A-a-ammonia gets blood out of carpet," Maeve stammered shakily. "There-there-there are two molecules that-that go by the name ammonia. The f-first is a gas, made from a n-n-nitrogen atom and three h-hydrogens."

"You're getting hysterical," Bobby sighed. His voice was softer now – calmer. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, you know how much I love you, sometimes it drives me crazy," he knelt beside her and looked at her cut up hands. "My clumsy Maeve. Stay there, I'll go get a cloth from the bathroom."

When he left, Maeve shakily got to her feet and looked at her hands. There were small shards of glass stuck in her palms. She wandered over to the front door, stepped into her shoes, and mechanically picked up her bag off the hook.

When she wandered out into the hall, her elderly neighbour was fiddling with his own set of keys.

'_Ammonia gas is also known as anhydrous ammonia, which means ammonia without water. Ammonia reacts with water in the environment very easily, so almost all of the ammonia you will ever encounter is actually ammonium hydroxide.'_

"Good evening, young Dr Donovan," he said smiling kindly at her. "Going for a late night walk? Got to be careful these days, especially a nice girl like you. I don't think your fiancé could stand you getting hurt."

'_The ammonia molecule steals a hydrogen nucleus from water. This makes the ammonium ion NH4+ and leaves the hydroxyl ion OH- as the only thing left of the water molecule. Since they have opposite charges, they attract one another and hang around the same neighborhood. Household ammonia, used as a cleaning agent, is actually water and ammonium hydroxide.'_

He frowned as Maeve passed him.

"Did you know you're bleeding, pet?"

Maeve heard Bobby calling for her and somehow her feet managed to carry her quickly down the stairs to her bike rack where she undid the lock with shaking, sticky fingers.

'_Ammonia is a base, like sodium hydroxide. Like sodium hydroxide, it can react with oils and fats to form soaps. As a cleaner, ammonia turns fats and oils on glass or tile surfaces into soap, and the water in the ammonia solution dissolves the soaps so the sponge or paper towel can carry them away. What is left is a solution of ammonium hydroxide, which then completely evaporates, leaving no streaks on the surface.'_

Somehow, her feet managed to automatically pedal her the journey to her parents' house outside of the city.

It was very late at night but her mother was still awake and shrieked when she saw her youngest daughter on the front door step – pale as a ghost, blood running down her arms and the side of her face blotchy and red.

"Baby, what happened?!"

"D-d-did you know animals make ammonia from proteins in the food they eat, a-and they use the ammonia to neutralise acids in their pee. That's why barns always smell like ammonia." She told her confused mother before she passed out.

Maeve was now was sitting in her room, staring at the ceiling and contemplating just how much of a pathetically tragic human being she was. She lifted herself up gingerly on her sore hands and sat down at the desk her parents had left untouched.

Her childhood desk was as messy as her adult one. Dusty books were piled up high, her sonic screw driver pen was sitting dutifully in her pen pot, there were various diagrams and drawings of molecules strewn across the surface and a metal photo frame she had engineered herself in her father's garage which held a photo of her family and a grainy picture of Arthur Conan Doyle.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look in the mirror that hung directly in front of her desk.

Maeve groaned when she saw that the welt was bruising into a distinguishable dark blue blotch on her face. She touched it tentatively and wondered embarrassedly why it had affected her so powerfully. She was a rambling, nerdy, skinny, child prodigy with a bit of a sarcastic mouth and a penchant for raising her hand too often in a public high school. She had taken many a hit among worse things. Maybe it was because it was _Bobby_ who was now hurting her and he was always the one who had protected her from those people. She began to wonder, not for the first time, if she was so terrible that she turned people bad. Was this the reason too why this stranger hated her so much?

"Stop, stop, stop!" she whispered angrily squeezing her eyes shut as they filled with tears again. She was tired of crying.

She studied the bruise again, wondering if Ingrid could somehow cover it so the people at work didn't think her any more pathetic and weak as they likely already did.

Maeve was so caught up in her thoughts as she stared at her reflection that was making her more nauseous the longer she looked, that she didn't hear the soft knock on her bedroom door followed by her father coming in until he knelt down next to her.

"Dad!" she gasped out. "W-what...where have you been?!"

"Calmin' myself," he told her. "I'm sorry I left and worried you. I thought about throwing him out the window but then I thought better o' it since you'd have to take over your mother and Alfie whilst I was in gaol and...well, I think you've been through enough."

Maeve smiled weakly but it turned into a strangled sob. "I-I'm so sorry..."

"It's okay, love," he said hugging her and rubbing her back. "You don't need t-"

"It-it's not o-okay," she cried. "I've done nothing but c-cause you tr-"

Joe grabbed both sides of Maeve's tearful face. "Maevy. None of this, and I mean, _none_ of this is your fault. No one's going to hurt you again. You've not put one foot wrong in your life and don't deserve anything but love. "

"You've always seen me better than I am," she folded her arms across herself.

"No, I see you exactly as you are," Joe said seriously before sighing.

"It breaks my heart that you punish yourself this way. All those lives you've saved and all that work you've done and you still can't let people love you. Ever since you were wee you'd be working three, four times as hard as all the other kids like you were trying to prove something – like you were trying to repay us for choosing you as a baby. Worst mistake I made was letting you go off to college as early as you did. I'm not sure if you started moonlighting as a serial killer or something I don't know about to have you be thinkin' this lowly of yourself - thinkin' you deserve this."

"I'm sorry," she said, shutting her eyes. She was so very tired and she felt guilty that Joe was doubting his parenting when he had been the best father she could have wished for.

"You don't need to apologise to me, Mae," he told her. "Can I ask you something?"

She nodded sleepily.

"Do you love him, Maeve? I'm just trying to understand this all..."

"I-I don't know," Maeve said biting her fingernails. "I suppose I would have had to, right? I...I don't know. I could probably find out. It wouldn't be too hard to do actually. I'd just need to measure the release of dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin in the nucleus accumbens. I'm...not sure how everyone else tells. Did Mum measure your brain activity before you got married? Surely, you would have liked to know for sure right?"

"Do you love Ingrid and Alfie?"

"Of course I do!" she said, confused. "But...but that's...you're doing that thing when you twist me up in my own logic aren't you? Oh, I've really messed up this time, haven't I? I...I feel so selfish. I've made all this mess because I can't just operate like a _normal_...it's just you and Mum seemed so _relieved _when I started to date Bobby and it was just nice to have you not worrying about me not being..."

"Ach, slow down!" Joe shushed her. "You're gonna overthink yourself into a concussion."

"If that were possible, you know it would have been a full-blown coma by now."

Joe chuckled and put his arm around her. "In time, Mae, you're going to see how extraordinary you are and allow yourself to be loved by someone properly. Like I always say: 'Anything less than mad, passionate, extraordinary love is a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life to deal with and love shouldn't be one of them'."

"You've never said that. You're the man who stunted me socially because you told me Ingrid and Alfie grew more dimwitted over time because you lose two IQ points everytime you kiss or hold someones hand at school. I wore gloves to school until I was fourteen," Maeve frowned. "And you're quoting Tiffanie DeBartolo. It one of Mum's inspirational magnets on the fridge."

"You're too smart for your own good, kiddo. What I'm trying to say is, even if you don't believe it in that overcrowded mind of yours, someone is going to absolutely adore everything about you. Not just tolerate all your quirks but love you even more for them."

Maeve crinkled her nose. "Have you been reading one of Mum's Nicholas Sparks novels?"

"No, but I've had to watch a lot of Hallmark movies in the waiting room when I take her to appointments. I picked up a few things. I'm just saying don't give up yet. There's someone for you."

"I know that. It's Edgar Allen Poe and I'm over 150 years too late. But I'll hold off on my subscription to _Spinsters Quarterly_ for another year and take on your profound albeit stolen wisdom."

"That's my girlie," he said ruffling her hair. "Now get some sleep. I got you a new toothbrush from the service station on my way back – it's in the bathroom."

"Thanks Dad," She meant a lot more than just the toothbrush.

Joe hesitated before leaving. "Is there anything else going on, Mae? Anything we should know about?"

"N-no," she said, as convincingly as possible. Maeve couldn't imagine burdening her father with her stalker tonight. He was already taking too much responsibility for the Bobby situation.

"Goodnight, love you kiddo."

"Love you too, Dad."


	6. Chapter 6

Maeve sat on the floor with her back against the cold wall, letting the curtain cord coil tightly around her finger. The moon was bright tonight – a full moon – Spencer had told her offhandedly earlier in their conversation. She had pulled the curtain aside only a little, as she sat out of sight beneath the window, for the light of the moon to pool through on to the patch of carpet before her. The Harvest Moon...or the Sturgeon Moon...Maeve had lost track of what month it was. She was beginning to feel as if her normally focused mind was floating away like a wayward balloon tethered to nothing but the young man on the other end of the phone who was desperate to hold on, sensing also that she was floating further out of reach.

She pushed her toes up to the line of light – the only illumination in the otherwise dark room – as she heard him breathe on the other end of the phone. There was a lull in their already limited conversation. For all the evenings they could talk for hours on poetry, history, literature, and tender conversations and jokes that only existed in the universe between them, there had many nights where no words at all were needed.

Their relationship had been their sweet and loving safe haven from the nightmarish reality of both their outside lives. But even something so sacred and innocent couldn't remain untouched from such overwhelming forces in the confines of their situation.

The cases Reid had worked for his entire adult life had never affected him quite the way they had since their conversation a month and a half ago. A throwaway comment that was likely inconsequential to Maeve but for Reid had changed him irreversibly.

"_Every Penrose Triangle has it's thorns."_

He heard her hair rustle against the phone as she shook her head and apologised for her terrible joke. He had laughed though, feeling lighter than he had ever felt before. _Oh_, _I love you. _

This immediate thought hadn't shocked him at all. He had known, more than he had ever been sure of anything, that he was destined to fall in love with her. To be in love with her for every moment of the rest of his life. Of this, he knew for certain but he assumed the exhilarating crescendo where every part of him embraced and accepted this while all the doubts and worries holding him back fell away would be when he kissed her for the first time or some other milestone that everything he knew about love previously had led him to believe. But it was neither exhilarating or a flood of emotion. Almost weary relief like sinking into a bath when your whole body had been aching or finally putting your favourite book down and drifting off to sleep in your own bed after a long trip. Somehow, as he sat cross-legged and cramped up in a phonebooth on a balmy Midwest evening of a town he had never been to before, he felt like he was finally home as his love for her slowly warmed every part of him without resistance, settling deep in his bones to stay.

He felt this _should _have relieved the loneliness he had been plagued with for his whole life but this seemed to add more weight to the heavy longing that befell them both. And while he felt completed and protected within the knowledge his heart was now with who it had always belonged to, he felt equally vulnerable in ways he didn't foresee.

Reid had, that day, returned from Texas after working The Silencer Case which had ended with John Myers fatally shooting himself. He had seen how members of his team had been able to process the horrors of their daily work lives by knowing they would soon be back in the arms of their families. Except, he felt more susceptible and vulnerable than ever.

When he saw photos of John Myers' past victims – innocent, brunette, beaten to death with their mouths sewn shut – the fragility of life and evil's torturous disregard for it knocked the breath from his body. Knowing that Maeve already had someone intent on hurting her and, despite Maeve insisting that things were getting better, knowing the danger she was in was a constant open wound. When he was fortunate enough to sleep, he dreamed only of her but lately they were morphing into nightmares of her screaming for him as she was murdered in all the horrifying ways his career had taught him were possible.

Reid had missed her desperately this week and wasted no time between getting off the jet and finding a phonebooth. She had sounded relieved but tired and sad when she had answered. He was comforted by the sweet relief of her voice but it did nothing to quench the part of him that felt like something was missing when he was away for too long.

He knew he was the luckiest man on Earth to know her mind and her heart but even so, he wanted more. He wanted to lose himself in the softness of her hair, the beauty of her eyes, to have her smile light him up from the inside out just as her laugh did. More than anything, he wanted to keep her safe. He cleared his throat in attempt to quell the melancholy and longing in his voice.

"What did you do today?" he asked her softly.

Maeve cleared her throat too.

"Nothing…nothing different to normal, I suppose," she responded quietly, sounding so small. "You know."

"I know," he smiled sadly, missing her laughter and light teasing like a lost limb. "But I want to hear it anyway. I want to feel like I was there with you."

Normally, Maeve _couldn't _stop talking but she was at a loss tonight as she glanced around the dark room finding something to grasp on to. The broken ceramic shards of the coffee mug were still strewn across the floor from where it had slipped from her fingers as she was pulled into a despairing and sudden onset of panic so powerful, she thought she was dying.

The worst part were the following hours she had spent unmoving in the same space she was still. Curled up and staring at the tea slowly seeping into the carpet, her mind had wandered to how _easy _it would be if she were to slip away quietly. She didn't believe she actively _wanted _to die but there was something undeniably desirable about simply going to sleep and not waking up. Maeve knew it was a selfish thought, even if it were only a thought, and that she was loved by her family and they would be in incredible pain. But, as loved as she knew she was, she had been a burden to everyone in her life even as a baby. And more so now than she had ever been, despite her attempt to shut them out the best she could. If she were to just slip away by no one's hand and by nobody's fault, they could grieve, as she knew they would and then be able to return to the normal lives that they deserved. Spencer would not have to feel anger or guilt and could have the normal, reciprocal relationship that he deserved.

Maeve knew she couldn't tell him _that _though. He would definitely break his promise and put himself in danger coming to find her.

"I finally planted those flowers..." her throat felt strange and stuck from another week of not speaking. "Well, I'm getting too optimistic there - the seeds I should say."

"From the seed packet your dad gave you last year?" Of course, Reid knew but he thought if he could just keep her talking, he could keep her from drifting away.

"Mhmm, it's a Clematis. There are purple flowers on the packet but I don't know how big they're supposed to get..."

"It's a vine. A perennial vine. It should get to about 6-12 feet if it has something to climb up."

Maeve paused. "Okay, Mr. McGregor, between saving the world and trying to bake Peter Rabbit into a pie when did you become an expert on horticulture?"

Reid felt warm relief rush through him hearing the smile in her voice. "_Rosemary & Thyme_ is always on at the sanitarium."

"Hospitals and care facilities really have the monopoly on midday English murder mysteries..."

"It's actually a whole subgenre of crime fiction, cozy mysteries or cozies. It's when all the violence, sex scenes, any adult themes occur off camera and the crime is normally set in a small community with an amateur sleuth investigating-I'm sorry, you probably know this..."

"No," Maeve said, happy to hear him talking so animatedly and abundantly again. "I like listening to you...and, and I didn't know that actually. Though, I should have - you know I love mystery novels. I could never watch any...cozy mysteries though. My mother thought even Scooby Doo was police propaganda. I remember my dad told her that Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes were archeologists so she wouldn't start making a fuss of me reading them when I was little."

"How would she feel about you da...seeing, I mean, speaking to someone who works for the FBI?"

"Well, my sister's the perceptive one in the family and my mother is probably, well, last but even she's guessed, I suppose, about you...existing. I don't know how. But certainly not enough to know what you do. The one and only time I was home sick from elementary school she begrudgingly watched _Murder, She Wrote_ with me. She was so enthralled she let _Midsomer Murders_ play after so I think she's warm to idea of detectives. And she would love you - she loves Anthony Hopkins so she's seen _Silence of the Lambs_ maybe fifty times so you would probably be at great risk of lots of common ignorant profiling questions. And...I guess she's spending a lot more time in hospitals now so she's probably watching a lot of them."

Reid's heart sank as he listened to her brighter voice deflate yet again as she thought of her sick mother who she couldn't be there for. He didn't want her to fall too far down that rabbit hole.

"W-why were you sick?"

"Sorry?"

"Do you remember why you were sick from school that day?"

Maeve felt her face burn – the only colour she had had in her cheeks that week. "I...I can't tell you that."

"Sorry - that was rude of me to ask-"

"No, no," Maeve said quickly. "It wasn't anything gross...it's just painfully embarrassing. I was the weirdest child."

"After all the awkward childhood stories you've gotten out of me, Dr Donovan, you're telling me you've been secretly keeping your own?"

"It's...horrible first love experiences stuff..."

"Worse than Alexa Lisbon?" Reid asked, teasingly. The space in his mind that had been occupied with the traumatic experience he had previously shared with her had been quickly replaced with her promise to make blindfolds fun again which had quite literally stolen all the breath from his body.

"No! She was a psychopath – I'm amazed _you _didn't become a serial killer after that bit-"

"You're deflecting again."

"Urgh," Maeve sighed and then spoke extremely fast to get the popular family Christmas story over with. "Fine, but you're not to say anything. I finished Charlie Baxter's Rubik's Cube for him when we were on the swing set and he kissed me very lightly and I fainted and hit my head. The gym teacher had to carry me to the school nurse and call my parents. I ended up with a fever and, for theatrics sake, the power went out so I had a candle by my bedside and a cloth on my head. That was my big 18th century romanticism literature year so it seemed the natural progression of things to fall ill of consumption shortly after being kissed. But I was back at school by Friday but, in that time, he had moved on from Rubiks' Cubes to Yo-Yo's which meant Tallulah McIntosh...are you _laughing, _Spencer Reid?!"

Reid couldn't help it any longer, the laughter wracking his body becoming unconcealed. "No, no, I'm sorry, haha, no. I am. I'm sorry. It's not funny," he said, still laughing.

Maeve was silent for a moment. "Okay, so my first heartbreak wasn't a traumatic _felony _but it was nothing to cackle at. I learned a lot of hard lessons that week. Not to let boys who can't solve their own Rubick's cube kiss me and not to have an affair in the English countryside with my groundskeeper."

"Well, I think Charlie Baxter made a huge mistake," Reid smiled thinking of how painstakingly besotted he would have been as a child to have known Maeve at the same age. He was painstakingly besotted now.

"Hmm" she hummed. "I wouldn't be so sure. Charlie Baxter's long-lost love failed to mention she planted the flowers in a colander. I don't think Rosemary or Thyme would have approved..."

He chuckled. "But you love pasta!"

Maeve sighed. "I know, but I don't have a drill to make draining holes in anything else."

"Well, it's clever then. And _draining holes_? You know a little bit of gardening then," Reid teased.

"Just a little from hospital waiting room magazines when I was an intern in between shifts," she smiled. "I'm also well-versed in midcentury modern design and who wore what at the 1993 Academy Awards. I think I can build you an easy outdoor bench from memory."

Reid felt content in the warmth that had evaded him all week. He was simply enjoying the relief that her voice brought when she misinterpreted his silence.

"I'm sorry – I'm rambling again, aren't I? Just stop me when I-"

"No, I...I love hearing you talk. I've really needed it this week," Reid sighed. "I-I really miss you."

"I miss you too," she said quietly. "I'm glad you're home."

"And..." Reid swallowed, not wanting her to retreat back into herself but, nevertheless, he needed to know. "Are you...safe?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm okay," Maeve answered, always too dismissively and unconvincingly.

Reid knew from experience that this was the point to stop but the stress of the week, the overwhelming thought of going back to his empty apartment, and facing another long week of not knowing where she was or if she was safe became almost unbearable.

"Spenc-"

"I hate this," he whispered, bitterly. All the warmth that had enveloped him during their conversation was ebbing away to leave nothing but the harsh and buzzing neon lighting of the payphone and the familiar, painful tug of longing. "I hate leaving you alone."

"I know," she sounded exhausted as she took a deep shuddering breath. "I'm sorry."

Maeve wasn't defensive or argumentative tonight and her tired, broken voice painfully knocked the wind out of him.

"Maeve, it's okay…it's not your fault-"

"It is!" she interrupted so unexpectedly but Reid didn't flinch away from the receiver. "I…I can't stop it and I can't tell when it will be over and I can't take care of my family and I can't give you what you deserve. I can't do _anything_."

"Maeve, don't say that," he pleaded wishing more than ever that he could take her in his arms and reassure her that she is far more than enough and nearly laughably more than he deserves.

"No, it's the truth," she countered with a muffled sob that she tried to contain deep in her chest. Small beads of water fell down her face one after the other, without a sign of stopping. Maeve was by no means capable of a pretty Hollywood actress cry. She would go splotchy red, her nose would run and her ears would ring loudly. She tried her best to stem the flow of tears, until they were off the phone at least, and scrunched up her face and bit her lip to keep it from moving. "I'm so sorry for putting you through this. For involving you in my mess; for putting you in danger. I'm so selfish. This was terrible of me to do..."

"No, Maeve, please don't cry," Reid pleaded. "You're not selfish. You're not selfish. I'm okay and you're okay. Please, please don't go."

_Please don't hate yourself. You're beautiful. You're kind. You're everything to me..._

His deepest and innermost thoughts swam to the surface and he longed, not for the first time, to give her every truthful word but their relationship was precarious enough with a deranged stalker, and Maeve having one foot out the door and ready to run at the first sign of him being in danger of anything slightly more worrying than a splinter. There was no feasible way, in his head, that she could feel as he did yet and telling her so would be the quickest way to lose her whether it be freaking her out from how fast he had fallen for her or the fact that he was growing restless and reckless knowing it was the girl he knew was the love of his life in harm's way would prompt him to do something stupid – which wasn't becoming too far from the truth.

Maeve was quiet on the line so Reid wasn't sure that she heard him but he could make out her shaky breaths though her weeping. But his shoulders relaxed in relief that she hadn't hung up.

The thick blanket of melancholy settled upon the young couple, separated by distance, once more. Reid's throat felt tight and his tongue was dry. He had the strange, overwhelming feeling of wanting to cry and a sense of fathomless despair flooded his body. He could sense her slowly over the past few months fade not just from him but from the world itself and he felt as if protecting her was like catching air in his bare hands. He yearned for nothing more than to reach through time and space and clutch her to him and protect her from this dangerous, faceless villain and, more recently, her own dark thoughts. He would dedicate his life to keeping her loved and safe if only she would let him...

"They're purple," Maeve whispered, wiping her eyes on the knees of her jeans as she curled up even smaller.

"Hmm?"

"The flowers I planted today. They-They're going to be purple." She'd already told him as much but he smiled weakly knowing what she meant. _Hope. _

Reid cleared his throat. "In floriography, Clematis symbolises ingenuity and mental beauty..." _The most beautiful girl in the world to me..._

"Hmm," Maeve mused sweetly, her recent tearfulness still evident in her voice. "I think in my Dad's language it symbolised something I can't kill easily."

They lapsed into silence again before Maeve spoke again softly. "They'll bloom in Spring...I can't wait for you to see them."

_Promise_.

Her softly spoken statement filled him with the warm glow of hopefulness and adoration, eclipsing – even if only for a small moment – the looming cloud of uncertainty and fear.

Reid gripped the phone tightly, closing his eyes and tried to talk past the swelling in his throat. "Me neither, Maeve."


	7. Chapter 7

**Hi everyone, sorry for the hiatus. I've included a prologue at the beginning of the story that I'd recommend old readers have a look at so this update makes more sense. Thank you so much – I hope you enjoy! **

The woman with the short hair would visit Maeve once or twice a day in the beginning, and less often as time progressed. Occasionally, she would be checked on by different girls she would only see a few times and then never again.

It had taken the dark-haired woman some time, and fits of rageful frustration, to realise that Maeve's hearing was completely gone on one side and severely damaged on the other. After realising that Maeve wasn't in fact ignoring her or losing her mind completely, she learned to talk to Maeve slowly and in a particular spot. Maeve had learned that the woman's name was Cat. After a few days, she let Maeve be untied from the bed.

It had taken Maeve a while to regain her strength enough to walk a little before falling down but she was still too injured and disorientated to work out where she was or how she got there. It was a large, grey room with a small bed and a desk pushed up against the wall. There was a small bathroom off to the side. The only colour discernible from the grey was a patchwork quilt on the bed and a patterned rug on the floor. There were no windows and the door was always locked. Something was screaming in Maeve's head but she was too dizzy and cloudy to work out what was going on.

Cat would come to make sure Maeve ate, looking exasperated when she threw it up not long after. She would gently replace the bandages across Maeve's temple until whatever injury she had that she couldn't remember would stop bleeding through.

At the start, Cat gave off the impression of someone who had been regretfully tasked with caring for a toddler. She was gentle when caring for Maeve's injuries and insistent on forcing her to eat and drink but there was an impatient coldness that overtook her ability to be compassionate.

Maeve's memory started returning in tiny, painful and exhausting bursts. She wasn't sure what was real and what was her mind trying to fill in the gaps. She wondered if this woman was the person who had been tormenting her for months and had finally kidnapped her but that didn't seem right.

Each time she vocalised something she remembered, Cat would transform into something terrifying and nearly inhuman. She would grip Maeve's arm tightly if not hit her, and seethe that Maeve didn't know what she was talking about and put narratives in Maeve's head that didn't quite fit.

Maeve quickly learned not to share any progress with Cat, who she had come to see was incredibly dangerous. It was safer, and easier to recover, if she pretended to be as clueless and disorientated as possible. But she felt herself getting stronger every day – both mentally and physically. She couldn't remember how she got where she was but she could remember fragments of her family, of her childhood home, stories she had read, and places she had been.

Maeve had been sitting at the desk, sketching a picture of an overgrown garden with the pencils and paper she had been given. She never drew anything specific for Cat to get angry at or convince her to doubt herself. But she drew a garden shed off to the side where she imagined her father having a cup of tea before he got started on the weeding. The generic looking landscapes she had drawn and stuck around the wall helped her keep hold of the memories she had collected.

She was halfway through trying to draw a wheelbarrow when she was tapped on the shoulder. Maeve jumped as she was still not used to not being able to hear people. She gasped and stood up, sending her chair crashing behind her as she looked down at the rug where a man in a business suit lay barely conscious. Cat put her hand on Maeve's shoulder and gripped it tightly as Maeve tried to help the man.

"This is a bad man, Mae-Mae," Cat told her, using the patronising nickname she had started to call Maeve. She still spoke to Maeve as if she were a child since Maeve was still not letting on just how much she was regaining her strength. "He hurt his wife."

Maeve's heart was racing as she turned to Cat, shivering at the excitement in her eyes. "Why-why is he here?"

"I wanted to see if you were ready to help out a little more around here," Cat smiled as if she had brought Maeve a pile of laundry. "I have high hopes for you, Mae-Mae. Your mind's been weakened by too many people intent on keeping you weak but I think in time you may end up being my favourite little apprentice. You just need a little push..."

Cat pushed a gun into Maeve's hand and she dropped it immediately as if it were piping hot. Cat rolled her eyes and retrieved it. "Careful with that."

"What-what are you talking about?!" Maeve said, crossing her arms over herself.

"I'm not keeping you here to sketch scenery and solve equations, honey. I have a very special job in mind for you and it's never too early to get in some practise so...show me what you can do," she held out the gun which Maeve flinched away from.

"So _pathetic_," Cat spat angrily before composing herself. "Early days I suppose. Fine, you can sit shot-gun on this one..."

"No!" Maeve said rushing to the man's side. "Don't-don't _kill _him. Whatever it is-we can work out another w-"

Maeve's head felt like it was being ripped apart as a loud bang erupted through her. But the first thing she registered was hot moisture splashing on the side of her face and neck. Once she wiped her eyes clean and realised she was in fact splattered by blood and brain matter, she went into shock for a whole minute before she started screaming. Cat calmly placed the gun on the desk and waited for Maeve to calm down.

Maeve screamed and rocked, clutching at her blood-splattered sweater. She felt the small degree of sanity she had managed to claw back in here start to fade away as she collapsed to the side, exhausted and sobbing. In her anguish, she quietly whimpered a name so desperately and tenderly. Maeve's eyes flew open as the love for Spencer she couldn't quite remember but so clearly knew flooded through her warmly and powerfully. In the same instance, Cat stood up in a flurry and grabbed Maeve's shoulders and pulled her from the floor to kneel on the blood-soaked rug.

"What did you say?" she demanded but Maeve didn't respond. She focused every single part of her brain she could to hang on to every tiny thing passing through it. She remembered the Penrose triangle, and their letters and phone calls, and the way he always wrote a capital 'R' in a sentence, and his mother Diana, and how he said he couldn't wait to see the flowers she had planted...

"Maeve," Cat said sternly as Maeve closed her eyes trying to drown out her voice and remember his. "You're confused. He didn't save you. _I _saved you. _I_ care about you. He-he...you're nothing to him, Maeve. He...tried to hurt you. He did hurt you."

"Spencer would never hurt me," Maeve said, her eyes opened and saw Cat looking taken aback and perhaps a little afraid at how lucid she was now.

Cat's almost beautiful face twisted into a sympathetic smile. "Come here," she said beckoning Maeve to sit beside her on the bed. Maeve did not want to. She wanted to sit on the floor, scared to leave in case she forgot about him when she did stand up. She knew that Cat would get angry though so hesitantly joined her.

"You went to meet him, remember, Mae-Mae," Cat said gently, tucking a blood-soaked curl behind Maeve's ear.

Maeve frowned. "I..."

"You brought a book for him...in a gift bag."

"_The Narrative of John Smith_," Maeve said quietly, unsure why Cat was assisting her but welcomed the puzzle pieces falling into place.

"Yes, you remember," Cat replied, encouragingly. "You wore a white dress and a yellow cardigan. You grabbed your coat at the last minute. Do you remember the colour?"

"Green," Maeve placed it in her head. "Dark green."

"Did you meet him?" Cat asked and Maeve drew a blank. Surely, if she could remember the colour of the coat she wore, she would remember meeting him there.

"You're on the sidewalk," Cat nudged again. "Did you meet?"

"No," she trembled slightly. "No, he calls me. It's not safe."

"Do you believe him?"

"No-not at first. I think he's changed his mind like I thought he would...but he said that wasn't it. Yes, yes I believe him."

"Do you go home, Mae-Mae?"

"I do," she whispered. "But I give the waitress the book before I leave."

"Do you remember getting home?" Cat enquired.

"Yes, I try and sleep but..."

"You don't get any," Cat finished. "Do you remember someone knocking on the door?"

"Yes...but...I wouldn't have answered it...but I do...why would I-"

"Because it's Spencer..."

"No," Maeve shook her head, it doesn't fit. "No, I don't think-"

"Your mind is trying to tell you it isn't true," Cat said gently. "He's there. He has hazel eyes and messy light brown hair and he's wearing a purple shirt. Do you remember?"

Maeve gasped, tears falling down her cheeks as she remembers his beautiful but painfully sad face. "Yes...how? How do I know what he...?"

"How do you feel when you see him?" Cat pushed, not letting Maeve stop to think.

Maeve started to tremble all over and gripped her arms tightly. "I...I don't know. I'm scared. I'm so scared. I don't want him there. I wish he wasn't. I wish more than anything he wasn't. Why...why would I want that?"

"What's the first thing he says to you?" Cat asked.

Maeve shook her head, not wanting to remember anymore. "I...I don't know. I don't want to."

"You have to! What does he say to you, Maeve?!"

Maeve gasped painfully; her tears mingled with the blood on her face and fell into her lap. "I...don't love you...sorry."

"That's right," Cat said softly before slapping her hands down on her lap as if slamming a book shut. "I thought I could spare you the pain of remembering but...maybe it's best that you do now."

"No..." Maeve shook her head. "There's parts missing...I..."

"Stop," Cat demanded pushing Maeve back down on to the bed. "You're exhausted and remembering something traumatic. Your brain isn't going to want to remember the gory details of what he did to you so it's probably going to try and start making up false stories to deal with the pain."

Maeve squeezed her eyes shut to try and stop the tears from flowing. Nothing made sense. If Spencer was the one that had hurt her, why was he the only source of hope she had since she got here? The very thought of him lit her up from the inside out. But fragments of the story made sense. She remembered his face, remembered his words and her fearfulness.

"I'll get you something to help you sleep," Cat said before turning to the corpse staining the rug on the floor. "And I'll get rid of this too. Maybe it was too soon. I'll have Lindsey bring in some fresh towels so you can shower later..."

Maeve doesn't hear her though. She felt like she was drowning again.


End file.
